


Orbit

by inkyfishes



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-09
Updated: 2017-02-19
Packaged: 2018-09-16 01:53:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 25,063
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9268475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkyfishes/pseuds/inkyfishes
Summary: A particularly angry (and uncharacteristically homicidal) Scottish ex-client threatens Dirk for un-birthing his girlfriend. Todd questions his presence in Dirk's life. A cat is involved.(Set post Season 2 - ie after Black Wing is 'sorted out'. Everyone is alive and the Holistic Agency is up and running)





	1. A Cat Named Bernice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richard MacDuff arrives with a gun, vengeance and a case. Todd helps Dirk get through it.

The bullet screamed through the door window of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency three seconds before the voice did.

Several things happened in response to the bullet.

Firstly, Farah crashed into Amanda, forcing her to the ground behind Todd's desk. She instantly began to complain, trapped as she was away from the guns and the bullets and all the exciting things.

Secondly Dirk, who had been loudly gesturing about a theory, or some such other important thing, dropped to the ground like a startled goat and scrambled for cover underneath his own desk.

Thirdly Todd, who had never been trained (Farah) or Pavloved (Dirk) into any specific reaction to gunfire and so had very little instinct to go on, settled for just getting the fuck out of possible direct bullet paths and so backed himself up against one of the walls.

Lastly Bernice, the small black not-quite-a-cat-but-not-quite-a-kitten now in the teenage phase of her emotional development, was snoozing on her beanbag on one of the more sunbeamy windowsills. Sharks were not evolutionary introduced to the concept of loud noises meaning Possible Bad, and so she entirely failed to go off.

'DIRK!' There was a thud as the loud, powerfully Scottish voice shook the last of the glass from the window. 'DIRK _FUCKING_ GENTLY!'

Todd was not surprised on whom the man was calling. He shot Dirk a scathing look. Dirk gave him a very innocent shrug in response.

'I'M GONNA KILL YEH, DIRK! YOU FUCKING BASTARD!'

'Friend?' Farah hissed sarcastically at Dirk. She had pulled her gun out of its holster and was holding it at her side.

Amanda was peeping over the desk, her yellow-nails just visible, her eyes filled with excitement and hunger and joy for destruction. Todd, scared almost entirely shitless, once again marvelled at the implausible results of genetics that meant he could be related to his sister.

Dirk shook his head violently, his face white with shock.

'Of course not! Do you really think this is how friends treat me?' Dirk spluttered.

Todd was about to remind Dirk just how many of his 'friends' had introduced themselves in a similar fashion, when another two shots rang off. One bullet gave a dull thud as it embedded itself into the office door. The other travelled through the broken glass of the door, missed Bernice entirely, and shattered the window behind her.

The cat, once again, failed to go off.

'Come out! I can do this all day!'

Todd couldn't. Todd had sane things to do, like laundry, watching TV and ordering pizza. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency had existed for 6 months now and Todd still wasn't used to the constant, heavy rush of adrenaline which accompanied frantic gunfights.

Farah passed Amanda her gun and began whispering in her ear in a smooth, regulated pattern which indicated the passing of detailed instruction. Amanda was furiously nodding, her fingers twitching, her mouth in a half-smile, clearly taking none of it in.

Todd stared at Dirk until Dirk felt the laser-like intensity and looked at him in return.

'Do you know who he is?' Todd mostly mouthed.

'He's - yes, I know who he is -' Dirk hissed. He sounded more annoyed that Todd should accuse him of a lack of knowledge than upset he was being shot at. 'He's from - from somewhere very violent.'

'Black Wing?'

'No!  _Scotland_. The accent, Todd!'

'Svlad, I'm going to ring yer neck -!'

'Excuse me!' Dirk shouted, standing up and right into the line of fire. 'That's _not_ my name anymore, whoever-you-are!'

'DIRK!'

Todd threw himself across the room and into the unsuspecting body of his best-friend-come-partner. The pair of them went over with the elegance of a felled tree and a similarly strangled 'urk' just moment before three shots exploded the air.

Todd ended up pressing Dirk into the floor, face down.

'Thank you?' Dirk squeaked.

Todd restrained his urge to punch him. He was getting very good at that.

Farah and Amanda ran to each side of the office door. Both of their weapons were out by their ears. Farah appeared to have magicked up yet another gun. Todd had to ask her where the hell she kept them.

Farah put her finger up against her lips: the international sign for "shut the fuck up." Todd held his hand over Dirk's mouth, ignored his protesting squeal, and nodded to Farah.

_Go._

Everyone was still. Or, rather, everyone was still except for Dirk, who was wiggling quite a bit. After a few seconds of silence there was a crunching of glass - someone moving towards the office from the corridor outside - and then the door handle begun to turn.

A man walked in, his gun by his side. The man was tall and thin, with dark, tight curls which were plastered close to his head. His brown eyes were deep-set with rage. He looked exceptionally manic, even when not taking into account the firearm. When taking into account the firearm, it was a lot worse.

The man caught sight of the prostrate form of the Holistic Detective being pinned onto the floor and glared straight at Dirk with the most murderous look in his face that Todd had ever seen. Todd had seen a _lot_ of people glaring at Dirk in that way, but there was extra menace in this one.

The man raised his weapon, Dirk in its sight. Todd gripped Dirk's arm with his free hand and felt the wobble in his Dirk's mouth as he swallowed.

There was a crunch of satisfying heel-on-spine as Farah roundhoused the man in the back. The man staggered forward. Amanda let out a screech of a karate movie sensei and brought the butt of her gun down onto the man's head. There was a satisfyingly sickening crack of fractured skull and the man fell to the floor with a howl of pain, dropping his gun. Farah kicked it across the floor.

The gun skidded and stopped just within Todd's reach. Todd scrambled off Dirk and grabbed it.

Three guns were now pointed at the man's head, who was lying prone and bleeding on the ground.

'Give me ONE good reason why we don't FUCKING shoot you, asshole!' Farah ordered.

The man was silent. Todd was momentarily worried they'd actually managed to kill him. He tried to get a good look at his face.

The man finally made a noise - a broken, desperate sob.

Todd stared at the man's face as it crumbled. The anger that had been there had seemingly vanished, replaced with an intense, overpowering grief. The man began to cry - great heaving sobs which rocked his entire body. He clutched his hands over his face and wept.

Despite his previously murderous intent, Todd felt suddenly uncomfortable holding a weapon at the broken man in front of him, and lowered his gun. Farah, far less likely to fall prey to simple deception, kept hers firmly pointed on him.

After a weighty few seconds of unabashed crying, Todd looked around to Farah and Amanda for what to do next. Amanda was scowling, angrily confused as to why all the chaos had stopped, and Farah was worrying her bottom lip, as if none of her training had prepared her for a spontaneously emotional opponent. Both of them seemed utterly clueless on how to proceed.

'He - he killed my girlfriend -' the man choked.

It took Todd a while to fully take the man's words and their implication. When they finally registered, he snorted, derisively. This was a shitty gamble, wasn't it? Dirk would never -

Turning to look at him, Dirk's face was not how Todd expected it to be. Dirk's face was pale, even more than usual. His mouth was slightly open, as if in shock. His eyes were flickering almost imperceptibly, like he was reading incredibly fast text which was flickering past his eyes.

Dirk looked at Farah, Amanda then finally met eyes with Todd. He lingered there, soft guilt passing over his lips. He swallowed and looked at the man.

'I'm so sorry, Richard.'

Todd heard white noise.

' _Dirk?_ ' Amanda sounded disbelieving, horrified. It was a good match to how Todd felt.

'I - I didn't kill her -' Dirk stuttered. Todd could breathe again. Of _course_ he didn't kill this man's girlfriend. Dirk couldn't - wouldn't - 'I made her un-exist.' _Wait, what?_ 'It's - it's an entirely different phenomenon! And - and I didn't -'

'You bastard! You moron!' the man - Richard - roared. He tried to get to his feet, but Farah kicked him back down. Richard didn't try again - just flung out a hand at Dirk and pointed. 'You wiped out her entire family! You! You! Her - her brother's gone! Michael - and Reg -'

'Reg?' Dirk let the name out like an escaping ghost. Dirk's eyes went wide. He stumbled backwards, into his desk. He half-sat down, entirely aghast, and shook his head slowly. 'No - no...'

'Didn't know that one, then?' Richard snarled. 'You didn't stick around long enough to realise that? Too fucking scared - too fucking terrified to face up to what you've done, Dirk Gently.'

'How? But how could -' Dirk's eyes were welling. 'That doesn't - doesn't make sense - it can't -'

'Nothing makes sense!' Richard screamed, slamming his fists on the ground like an angry toddler. 'Everyone I loved is gone - but they never existed! I don't have funerals to go to - I can't - I can't do anything. Everyone thinks I'm mad. Oh, God, _Susan_. Everyone I ever loved is gone and it's all your fucking fault, Dirk Gently - !'

Richard descended into incomprehensible sobs.

*

They handcuffed Richard to an exposed pipe, just in case he tried anything again, although Todd thought it unlikely. Without a weapon, he didn't seem like much of a threat and, besides, Todd had confidence Farah could take down a bull elephant. Irregardless of Farah's phenomenal ability to keep them from all dying, Richard looked defeated and destroyed, sitting on the questionable carpet with his one free hand holding up his head. He wasn't about to hurt anyone.

'What _is_ this, Dirk?' Amanda asked, softly.

Dirk didn't respond. He hadn't said anything past "it can't". He just stood, still, as if trapped in ice. It was as if Todd could see Dirk's brain short circuiting again and again, like he was reaching some impossible conclusion and dismissing it just to reach it again.

'Dirk?' Amanda tried again.

'What are we going to do with _him_?' Todd interjected, pointing at Richard and distracting Amanda.

He could feel Dirk needing space from reality for a bit - the events had clearly taken some dark turn that Dirk needed to assess before he would rejoin the rest of the universe again.

'We - we can just take him to the police, can't we? I mean, fuck, he shot the whole building up,' Amanda said, brandishing Farah's gun around as if it wasn't a dangerous weapon.

'No,' Farah murmured. Amanda and Todd looked at her. She was looking over Richard critically, putting together the pieces of her own puzzle. 'If he mouths off about Dirk saying this kind of bullshit, the police might start asking questions.'

Todd knew what "questions" Farah was contemplating.

Dirk Gently didn't exist. Well, he clearly _did_  exist - his name was on a brass plate and everything - but the man "Dirk Gently" had no paper trail.

Apparently, the CIA - Riggins, actually - had been leaping into action when Dirk tried to do anything which required formal identification, trying to keep him as underground as possible whilst making sure he didn't do anything stupid like starve.

They sent the IRS on a dummy trail, they bailed him whenever he was put into custody, they even got the DMV to greenlight him a driving licence without sitting a test - something which no one who ever shared a car with Dirk had trouble believing.

But since Black Wing had disbanded and the CIA had trashed evidence of their links to the forty-two Projects, Dirk had been effectively been burned out of society. If the police asked the right sort of questions in the right order, there was no guarantee they wouldn't pin him down as some sort of British illegal alien and - when unable to produce any sort of citizenship papers - ship him back to England.

'So, we just... let him go?' Amanda asked, incredulously.

Farah didn't have an answer. Todd crunched over the glass that had exploded into the centre of the room towards where Richard was.

'Hey. Hey - Richard, was it?' Todd said.

Richard looked up. His eyes were red. His face was blotchy.

'I'm sorry about your -' Todd hesitated. '- everything, but you can see how this is difficult for us. I mean, we want to let you go man, but you might just go get another gun and then we'll be right back here playing shooting gallery and, really, we're already very close to losing our security deposit because of that time with the termite farm.' Todd sighed. 'Just - just tell us what can we do let you leave this room without wanting to kill Dirk.'

'Find her,' Richard's voice was filled with raw emotion, then it spun into venom and he was staring, hate blazing in his eyes, at Dirk's impassive, frozen expression. 'Find my girlfriend. Find her brother. Find Michael Wenton-Weakes, find Reg Chronotis - find all the people that were in my life and would have stayed in my life if it wasn't for that piece of shit friend of yours deciding to get involved.'

*

They had a case. They had a case and Dirk wasn't excited. He wasn't even talking. He wasn't even moving.

Something was very, very wrong.

After two hours of low talking, many promises to not come back and shoot up any Holistic Detective property or Holistic Detectives themselves, they had let Richard go. They really had no choice - they couldn't exactly hold him prisoner forever. Todd gave Richard a card (it was the first one that Dirk hadn't frantically pushed into someone's hand - the lady next door, a passing gardener, several bewildered children) and told him to call the office the next morning, as they had taken the case. Amanda and Farah had decided to take him, for the added insurance of knowing where Richard was living and making him a lot easier to follow later.

Todd would have gone too, if it wasn't for one simple fact. In two hours, Dirk still hadn't moved. He was half standing, half-perched on his desk, staring into the wall opposite, looking stunned.

Todd was beyond worried, now into a full fledged frantic panic he hadn't experienced since Amanda's first attack.

Had he broken? Was it possible to break Dirk? How did one factory reset Dirk Gently?

It was hauntingly similar to how Dirk had looked when Todd had met him after he had been discharged from the hospital. That same heartbreaking lack of recognition and distant, terrified sadness. Todd had never wanted to see that again.

Todd took a deep breath and approached his best friend cautiously. He touched Dirk's hand, which was limp by his side. It was like ice. Dirk was freezing. In fact, he was even shivering. _Shit_. Todd hadn't noticed the tiny twitches in Dirk's body until he was very close.

Todd picked up Dirk's hand and turned it over. Not entirely knowing what he was doing, Todd slipped his fingers through Dirk's, chaining them together and squeezed. He felt tough, hard bone and soft skin. Dirk's pulse was throbbing.

'Hey. You there?' Todd was quiet, searching Dirk's blank, open expression with his eyes. Dirk didn't just look frightened, he looked deeply, fundamentally afraid. Todd tried to let his own panic slide and concentrated on Dirk's cold fingers. He rubbed them with his thumb, trying to bring some heat underneath Dirk's skin. 'No pressure, okay Dirk? Just - just squeeze if you're there, okay?'

Dirk gave a stiff squeeze. Todd let out a shaky sigh of relief and squeezed him back. 'Okay, good. Wow. That's real good. Is there anything I can get you? Water? Cat? Tea?'

On the third suggestion, Dirk's palm twitched. Todd let out a little snicker.

Todd then realised he would have to go to get the electric kettle, fill it from the small tap in the bathroom, grab the poncy-British-import tea, milk and sugar from the cupboard, all whilst not holding Dirk's hand. It was an almost catastrophic thought, one that would have Todd finally allow Dirk to bring that crazy teasmaid thing he had at his apartment into the office, as he had been threatening for so long.

As it was, Todd had no choice. He gave Dirk another long squeeze and disconnected their hands.

He was out of the room for all of half a minute. When Todd came back in with everything he needed, he was surprised to see Dirk not standing by his desk but sitting, cross legged, on the small IKEA couch by the wall. He was carefully, thoughtfully looking at Bernice, who was tightly rolled up on a pillow on his lap in a deep snooze.

Todd watched Dirk gently pet the cat with long, cautious strokes - head to tail, head to tail - as he plugged the kettle into an already overcrowded 4-way travel adaptor (the kettle was British, as was Dirk's Macbook, phone charger and anything else electric). The kettle gurgled, satisfyingly.

'She never lets me do that,' Todd smiled, crossing his arms and leaning on the wall. 'Not much of a lap-shark.'

'The trick is -' Dirk spoke. Todd felt relief crash over him as he heard Dirk's voice again. '- to not want to stroke her, but to let her want to be stroked. She's her own cat and, after quite a significant part of her sharky life being brought around in large, ornate fish tanks by playboy billionaires and rock stars, then abused by a bunch of psycho-hippies, she wants to do things _her_ way for a change. I just facilitate that.'

'You're good at facilitating her. She's happy here, you know. Hasn't gone off once since you adopted her.'

Todd liked how Dirk's eyes glinted happily at his words and how he was truly smiling again. The sides of his eyes were slightly creased. His lips twitched as he stroked Bernice's short fur, microexpressions flickering constantly over his re-assuredly animated face. Todd could have watched him for hours.

The kettle clicked off. Todd picked up the kettle, the tea, the milk and sugar and brought it all over to Dirk for him to put together.

Dirk was the only one of them who was allowed to actually _make_ the tea, except Farah who could - occasionally - be permitted as long as it was one of those foul, herby-tasting teas that didn't need milk. Neither Amanda nor Todd had passed the tea-making test satisfactorily enough for Dirk's permission. Todd didn't give a shit, but Amanda found it infuriating.

Dirk poured the hot water, added the tea bags, stroked Bernice a bit more until some imperceptible-except-to-Dirk-and-maybe-Farah-but-not-anything-with-milk-in-it time had passed and then pulled out the tea bags. He splashed in the milk and added one sugar - Todd - and three sugars - Dirk. All that without disturbing Bernice from her catnap.

They drank in absolute silence, side by side on the couch, watching the red glow of the _XXX_ shop across from their office radiate into the darkening sky.

Todd found he liked that kind of silence - a peaceful, careful silence, interrupted only by Dirk murmuring small things to Bernice and Bernice occasionally working up the energy to purr.

Todd finished his tea and put the mug down.

It was then that Dirk began to talk.

*

'He's a friend from Dirk's college,' Todd begun explaining in the diner the next day.

Amanda shook her head, her cheeks puffed out with the sheer amount of burger she had decided to try and eat in one bite. Farah was looking at her from behind her black coffee with a mixture of incredible fear and sheer awe.

'Nope -' Amanda swallowed. She unsuccessfully wiped grease from her mouth, spreading it down her hand. 'Nope, Brits don't go to college. They go to _university_. I watch Sherlock; you're lying.'

'Why would I be lying, Amanda?' Todd pointed out, and wrinkled his nose as Amanda licked the grease off her hand. He pulled a wad of napkins from the shining, metal dispenser and threw them at her. 'Gross. Anyway, Dirk did go to college. In Cambridge.'

'Where he met Richard...?' Farah trailed off.

'Richard MacDuff. Apparently he did something in computers and music.'

'Got the last name right,' Amanda said to Farah, giving Todd an approving nod.

Todd looked incredulously from Amanda to Farah. 'Was that a test? You already knew his last name, you just wanted to check that I knew it? Again, why the hell would I be lying?'

'We're not trying to work out whether you're lying, Todd,' Farah said, slightly frowning. She lowered her voice and leaned in. 'We're trying to work out whether Dirk is.'

'He acted real strange when he recognised Richard, Todd,' Amanda said, in a sing-song agreeing type voice.

'As opposed to Dirk's normal, entirely unstrange reaction to... anything?' Todd said, flicking a hand to underline the stupidity. Amanda rolled her eyes, shrugging, and went back for more burger. 'Anyway, he wasn't lying. I could tell if he was; trust me.'

Amanda side-eyed Farah. Farah pursed her lips and, after two seconds, nodded.

'Yeah, okay,' Farah conceded. 'So, did he say anything about MacDuff's girlfriend? Anything about what happened?'

'No,' Todd said, letting his frustration show. 'I didn't want to poke him too much. He just said he was someone from his college - St. Cedd's, I think - and that he had been part of a case Dirk had investigated in London.'

'Wait - Dirk's done cases _before?_ ' Amanda let her burger fall out of her hands. It lolloped on the plate.

'Well, yeah -' Todd looked at Farah, who also looked slightly curious herself. Todd was a bit surprised; he hadn't known it wasn't common information between them. 'He said - when I first met him - he said he'd done some cases before. I just assumed -'

'Oh, _man_ ,' Amanda blew her fringe out of her eyes with a scowl. 'Shit. That makes our Agency just so much less special if he's done it all before. What if there's another Holistic Agency out there? What if there's another more English-y-er Farah -' Farah snorted. Amanda continued, rapidly tapping the table. 'Ooh - ooh - an English me! And he could have had, like, five assistants before you, Todd!'

Todd swallowed. He hadn't thought of that. Why hadn't he thought of that? Could that be true? What was that Dirk had said when they had first (in Todd's perspective, anyway) met?

_"An assistant! I knew it..."_

An assistant. _An_. Singular. Did that imply one of many?

'He didn't tell you anything about the case?' Farah asked, very noticeably normally. She had perhaps detected that Amanda was unwittingly launching some probing questions on her brother and wanted to re-direct the conversation.

'Um. No,' Todd said, trying to tear his thoughts away from spiralling around that one, singular thought of being a one, singular being in a long line of assistants who swung around Dirk Gently, trapped in holistically interconnected orbits. 'He just said something about a sofa being involved.'

'Sofa? Like a couch?' Amanda asked, finishing off her fries. Todd nodded. Amanda shrugged. 'Sounds Dirk-ish enough to me to be true. Why don't we just go ask MacDuff, if Dirk's not gonna be any help?'

'Oh sure,' Todd said, sarcastically. 'Why don't we just go ask the raging lunatic that shot up our office? What's the worst that could happen? Another insignificantly small gunfight?'

'Yeah!' Amanda said, brimming with excitement and eagerness. She stuck up her hand and waved down the check.


	2. The Chocolate Lady

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amanda, Farah and Todd quiz MacDuff while Dirk goes AWOL.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major-ish spoilers for the first Dirk Gently book. Although in this universe the story is slightly different, it still spoils the final solution. Vague references to the second Dirk Gently book, but not in spoiler territory.

**Several Years Earlier**

_London_

Detective Inspector Gilks was a tall, grey-haired man in his late forties, who had already had enough of that shit. Whatever that shit happened to be, it didn't matter. He had already had his fill, thank you, and would not be requiring any of it wrapped up into a foil swan to take home.

Gilks had been given today's shit after the London Fire Brigade had responded to a fire in an affluent flat on Townshend Road -- that there were any flats on Townshend Road that were not affluent. The LFB had gone in all gungho, shot foam everywhere, trod, hacked or slashed through every single piece of viable evidence, and then dumped the case -- and the clean up -- squarely with the MET.

The uniforms who had responded initially had immediately escalated it. There was a body inside the property. And -- apparently due to the state of a body inside -- Gilks had been assigned the investigation -- apparently because he had pissed off one of his superiors.

Said uniforms were now outside the property, looking very pale.

'It's bad in there,' one of them muttered as Gilks passed.

'Yes, thank you,' Gilks snapped, not appreciating the familiar tone. He searched in his pockets and -- after locating his plastic gloves -- he begun the laborious process of tugging them on. 'Who's been in the scene since you secured it?'

'LFB - picking up their stuff. Then DI Carter -- she's still up there, waiting for you. No one else. Sir.'

The uniform had obviously added the last to satisfy Gilks' seniority. The uniform obviously did not know Gilks. Gilks scowled at him menacingly and stomped through into the hallway.

The hallway was large and open with a spiralling, metal staircase that honed back to when this was one large house, before it was callously sliced into overpriced flats. Gilks heavily stamped up the stairs to flat 302.

The door to the flat was white and looked decently expensive, except for the fact that it was splintered in half, presumably from the enthusiastic use of the LFB's battering ram.

There would be no way to determine whether entry had been forced. Bugger. And to cap it off, there was fire-suppressing foam pooling into the corridor from underneath the door.

Gilks shuddered and clenched his teeth. Then, he stepped over the threshold and promptly ruined his shoes. Double bugger.

The flat had an internal corridor with two doors on either side and one in front. The path of disaster -- foam spray and devastated carpet -- led towards the door in front. Gilks followed it.

The room he was led to was a large study. The walls were oak-panelled, now burned to a cinder and blackened like coal. They had been obviously decorated with paintings which - although once no doubt impressively ornate - had been effectively pressure-washed by the LFB and were now oozing paint like it was blood. The floor had been a plush, beige carpet and was now a mottled, cloying clump of foamy fabric.

Most of the damage seemed centred around the end of the room. There, a large, charred and cindered desk slumped pitifully. If anything had been on top of it, it would have been wiped out of existence by furious inferno.

Behind the desk sat what had presumably caused the uniforms to escalate the case and then vomit in the primly neatened hedge outside: a body sitting in a chair. More accurately, there was a large pile of charred bones and blackened skin sitting in a chair. The face -- where the face should have been -- had been entirely burned away, leaving a fixed skeleton-grin.

Then, the smell hit him. Triple bugger.

Gilks fumbled in his pocket. He pulled out a handkerchief and then quickly pressed it to his nose. He had pre-soaked in peppermint oil. It masked the scent, sort of. There was nothing quite like the smell of burned flesh. It was the fragrant equivalent of a distressed mother's scream after being told their child had gone under a car.

'Bad, huh?'

Gilks had been quite preoccupied with the grinning corpse and had not noticed DI Carter standing besides him. She was holding a similar handkerchief to her nose. Hers was slightly smaller and blue, but no doubt just as doused in oil.

'Quite.' Gilks gave DI Carter a small, curt nod. 'Do we know the point of origin?'

Carter pointed at the corpse, at the man's burned lap.

Gilks frowned. 'Fell asleep with a cigarette? Stupid man.' Gilks had very little time for anyone, especially over-privileged sons of media moguls who didn't have the sense to stub out their cigarettes before taking a midday nap.

'Hmm, maybe.'

'Maybe?'

'LFB say the fire originated from the body itself. There's no burn pattern on his lap -' Carter gestured towards the skeleton. '- and the little clothing that's left shows that the burn went _out_ rather than _in_.'

'Hmm.' Gilks frowned.

He took his eyes away from the body. It was pointless to examine the body at this point, when the autopsy would reveal everything. He looked instead around the flat, trying to find anything that could be considered out of place.

It was very difficult. Most things had either been sprayed with foam or had been very much on fire. Gilks concentrated on the items that were still more or less intact.

The few books on the uppers of shelves looked alright and non-suspicious. The walls, although black, looked steady. The windows --

Ah. The windows. Gilks spotted something there immediately. In the window closest to the desk, there was a very neat hole straight through the glass. It was no bigger than his thumb.

'Bullet hole?' Carter asked, following Gilks' eyes.

Gilks frowned, neither confirming or denying. It didn't look right. Apart from the hole, the window was very much intact. There had been no shattering, or even the characteristic spiderweb that would come along with bulletproof glass. The edges of the hole were smooth. It almost looked as if it had been burned through. Maybe it was a strange design choice. Maybe it was now trendy for the metropolitan elite to have unexplained holes in their windows.

He was about to posit one of these theories to Carter, when her phone began blipping in her pocket. Gilks was going to snap at her for leaving her phone on during a crime scene investigation, but his phone also chose that time to start blipping.

Gilks fished the mobile from his pocket, flipped it open and held it to his ear.

'Detective Inspector -' Gilks began.

'Gilks! Gilks, are you at Townshend road?' Gilks recognised the tinny Oxbridge voice of his senior officer, sounding out of breath and panicked.

Outside of the phone, Carter was answering a very similar question -- presumably from a very similar senior officer. Gilks did not believe that to be a coincidence.

'...Yes, I just arri --'

'Leave, now! Hands off, walk away please! Home Office orders. Not our case!'

'Sir?' Gilks put all his effort into the single word question to mean both "are you bloody serious, I drove through Central London for this" and "are you bloody serious, we're supposed to be top dog here not some fancy public-school politicians".

'I _know_ , I _know_. Apparently it's linked to some American thing.' Gilks' nose twitched in disgust. 'They're sending over their people. International consequences and all that. Luckily, it won't show up on our statistics.' His senior officer sounded extremely pleased. Gilks remained disapprovingly silent. 'Listen, Gilks, could you and Carter stand outside the door? Don't let anyone in unless they say they're with -- what was it, Bernard? The Greek thingy?' Gilks heard someone shout something in the background. 'Ah, yes! That's it. Yes, the word is this is being handled under Project Icarus. Just to repeat, don't let _anyone_ in, unless they explicitly say they're with Project Icarus.'

'Project Icarus?' Gilks murmured.

Gilks took in the burned, melted shell of what used to be a human being. He may not have had wings, but it was pretty accurate.

*

**Present Day**

Dirk Gently was driving -- or, more accurately, Dirk Gently was doing what Dirk Gently would call driving. He had been hurtling down the highway without direction -- or attention to speed limits, knowledge of the American Highway Code or generally accepted levels of driver awareness -- for a few hours.

He wasn't exactly directionless, it was rather that directions weren't that important. Nothing was important at the moment because something was wrong.

No -- even that wasn't right -- absolutely  _everything_ was wrong.

Dirk gripped the steering wheel harder and took out his frustration on the gearshift. The car -- a red Ford Mustang convertible which had been the latest pick in the ongoing car trade -- rumbled appreciatively.

What _was_ the universe trying to tell him? Where was he being led? And how did MacDuff fit into this? Was this even a case? It felt like a case -- there was an angry person demanding answers in Dirk's general direction, that was usually a good indicator -- but something was missing. Something important. 

Dirk hurled the car to the left, out of the path of a man who was flipping a sign advertising a new Egyptian exhibit whilst crossing the road.

MacDuff. It all came back to MacDuff. MacDuff, who knew him at St. Cedds, who re-appeared in his life over a decade later as a client and now -- more years later -- he was apparently a client again!

Was that even a thing? Was Dirk supposed to apply some sort of loyalty card style discount here?

Dirk needed a distraction. He fumbled with the radio until it burst into life.

 _...Sing a song, sing a song!_ Da-dum! _Sing a song a-hah! My dear small friend a-hah..._

The song was energetic and upbeat, with a thunderingly heavy rock rhythm. It settled nicely into the background of Dirk's panic.

What was he trying to distract himself from again? Yes -- that case. The first really _bad_ case. Up until then, it had mostly been missing cats, the occasional death-defying horse disappearance.

Then, from out of nowhere, _that_ case. The case where MacDuff had been suspected of the murder of his girlfriend's brother, Gordon Way.

Dirk had cleared him of it.

_...No one knows you can croon; you can sing a-hah! Sing your small song, small thing oh-hoh..._

MacDuff was a free man. Dirk had solved the case!

_...Ancient song, spe-cial song, small thing. Call your lightening eagle down my small friend a-hah!..._

Except... he hadn't solved it. Not really. It had been -- at the most -- partially solved. Cases had many things to be solved in them and Dirk knew, deep down, that he hadn't solved everything.

Dirk bit his knuckle, driving one handed, fighting the ache in his chest.

He had got MacDuff off the murder charge, and worked out the entire riddle that had led to Gordon Way's murder in the first place. The jigsaw puzzle was complete _enough_ \-- enough to keep MacDuff out of prison, enough to ensure that life did continue to exist on the planet Earth -- but there was that awkward side piece that had fallen under the sofa and Dirk had given up looking for.

 _...you'll be safe, no water. Remember song; don't falter. Sing a song, sing a song!_ Da-dum! _Sing a song..._

Dirk could have solved it. He _could_ have. But he had backed out. There was no other way of saying it: Dirk had been scared, panicked and terrified, and fled.

'Dammit! Dammit!' Dirk slammed his hands on the steering wheel, overwhelmed with self-hatred and regret. His eyes were stinging with tears. It was becoming more and more difficult to drive.

Dirk knew he should pull over. He geared down and slowed.

He was looking for a rest stop where he at least had a chance at finding some tea to calm his nerves, when everything exploded.

There was a shock of intense, piercing white light directly in front of Dirk in the middle of the road, followed milliseconds later by the crack of angry thunder. Dirk caught a glimpse of the overwhelming brightness of burning magnesium, and then his vision went screaming out of existence.

Dirk yelled and flung up an arm instinctively to protect his eyes. That turned out to be a bad move.

He jolted forward as the front of the Mustang slammed into something. The music cut off. The airbag deployed. Dirk's seatbelt squeaked as it tightened, taking the full force of his impact.

After a few, terrifyingly helpless seconds of skidding and crunching metal, everything juddered to a halt.

Dirk tried to cry out in pain but found there was no breath in his body to do so. He lay prone for a few minutes, enjoying the relative comfort of the airbag on his face when compared to the burn around his chest.

The Mustang's alarm was blaring, but Dirk could barely hear anything over the rush of blood in his ears.

When he felt less like he had died -- which was a familiar feeling, but not one which he wished to get used to -- he began to check whether anything was broken.

He flexed his hands gently. Nothing appeared to be broken there. He brought his hands up to his face -- shoulders, arms, upstairs bits all okay -- and rubbed at his eyes. Dirk realised he was able to see again and shuddered gratefully, letting out one of the few breaths he had managed to swallow down.

At that point, Dirk recognised that there was smoke coming from the engine. Quite a lot of it.

Not wishing to die of asphyxiation any time in the near future, Dirk realised it was probably best to get out of the car. It would also be a useful test to check whether his legs were still in good working order. All in all, it was a rather good decision to make. _Quickly_.

The driver's side door opened easily. Dirk hissed in pain as he unbuckled his seatbelt. His chest _really_ hurt. He crouched as he pulled himself out, bending his body over to alleviate some of the stretch on his chest. He legs held and -- although he felt shaky, bruised and bloodied -- it was overall one of his less disastrous crashes.

At this point, Dirk realised he must have driven into the back of a large, blue van. The van seemed to belong to some sort of animal shelter. He could tell from the looping 'City Animal Rescue' slogan in red font on the side of the van, the logo of a happy looking cartoon horse with one eye bandaged, and the astounding amount of dogs which were suddenly running around the middle of the road, presumably having escaped via the rear doors which had swung open.

'Ah,' Dirk said, and then: 'Oh.'

It was _terrific_ amount of dogs. Dirk hoped he hadn't inconvenienced them, although, they all looked happy enough, chasing each other and barking happily.

The driver of the van was already out. She was a woman, early twenties, wearing blue overalls. Her blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail. She had a cut above her eye but -- other than that -- seemed in a far better state than Dirk felt. In her hands, she was swinging a wicker basket. Dirk thought he could see a fat tabby cat inside.

'Oh my God, are you okay?' the woman said, putting the basket on the ground. She ran over to him.

'Quite -- quite fine!' Dirk lied, pressing his hands delicately over where the seatbelt had caught him around his chest.

The woman did not look convinced. 'Let me call an ambulance.'

'No! No -- no!' Dirk said, perhaps more forcefully that he intended. He tried to explain: 'Ambulances mean hospitals and hospitals mean insurance and insurance means "what do you mean don't have a Green Card, here let me deport you back to wherever country will take you because it sure as hell isn't England with you without a passport especially after Brexit -- !"'

'Okay! Okay! Chill, man,' the woman said, her eyes wide. She looked slightly terrified.

Dirk, now feeling calmer that he wasn't in immediate danger, nodded thankfully. 'Thank you. Anyway, I'll be alright in a bit. Look, I can even walk! It's surprising how -- ow -- you only realise how nice that kind of thing is when -- ow -- it's suddenly taken away from you --'

'Stop moving! Sit down! You look pale.'

Dirk _felt_ pale. He allowed the woman to lead him over to the back of her van. Inside, there were many cages, all of which had sprung loose in the impact.

Dirk sat on the floor of the van, his legs hanging out of the back. He crouched over slightly. The position helped a lot with the pain.

The woman went to the front of the van and rummaged for a bit. Dirk watched the dogs, yelping and growling at one another as they enjoyed their unscheduled play time.

When the woman returned, it was with a bottle of water. She gave it to Dirk who thanked her and cracked it open.

'I'm so sorry --' she began. 'I saw -- I don't even know what it was. Lightening?' she looked up into the cloudless, baby-blue sky in complete disbelief. 'Whatever it was, it just -- blinded me. I hit the breaks. God, I'm so sorry. I've only been driving for six months -- this is my first crash.'

'It gets easier after crash thirty-seven,' Dirk said, consolingly. The woman gave him a strange look. Dirk rushed to continue. 'I saw the lightening too. And it blinded me. I just didn't break. An accident,' Dirk added, even though he didn't believe in them.

'Or an act of God,' the woman mused.

'Hardly,' Dirk said, dismissively. 'Believe me, if a lightening God wanted to blind you, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't ever see again. I know their type. Actually, I know _him_.'

'You're not making much -- any -- any sense,' the woman said, slowly. 'I think you might have a concussion. What's your name?'

'Dirk. Dirk Gently.'

The woman stared at him and did not shake his offered hand. 'Of the Holistic Detective Agency?' she asked, in disbelief.

Dirk paused, wondering how to react. On one hand, this could mean that the YouTube video advertising the Agency that he and Amanda had filmed had _finally_ gone viral. On the other hand...

'Of course!' she exclaimed, happily. She clapped her hands together. 'That would explain why you were heading in this direction!'

'Oh, yes!' Dirk nodded enthusiastically, having no idea what was going on, but pleased that she was smiling.

'To think you crash into one of our vans! That's ironic. Hey - who finally got in contact with you? Was it Sammy? Sammy's been trying so hard.'

'Yep, definitely -- definitely good ol' Sammy.' Dirk kept nodding.

He had found that nodding was a very way of getting people to keep talking.

'Well, your car's a bit --' They both looked at the miserable pile of wreckage, which even the dogs were avoiding. '...yeah. Listen, how about I drive you to the Centre and you can call for help there? And while you're there, we can get everything sorted with Ginger? I'll pay the fees -- it's the least I can do as repayment for... for everything that's happened.'

'That sounds absolutely like a thing I intend to do,' Dirk said, throwing himself full force into the situation. 'But I have one very minor question.'

'Shoot.'

'Before we leave, do we have to collect _all_ these dogs?'

*

Walking into Richard MacDuff's apartment gave Farah intense dejavu of her previous employer and his addiction to electronics.

It was as if Radioshack had vomited. Every inch of the floor was either covered with thick, criss-crossing cables or glinting black computers. The sound of fans from the kitchen -- or what probably _used_ to be a kitchen -- was like an aircraft carrier. There were flat screen monitors in every direction, all open to various nondescript black windows with rolling white text.

MacDuff himself looked in as much disarray as his apartment did. He had clearly just woken up. He was in a dark hoodie and jeans, his exploded hair unsuccessfully hidden underneath his hood.

'We told you to call us,' Farah said. She noted all access points in the room out of habit. Seeing nothing unusual -- other than the ridiclous amount of computer equipment -- Farah let Todd and Amanda walk in after her. They looked just as surprised.

'Sorry -- I kind of -' MacDuff gestured towards one corner of the room, where a large mound of beer bottles had obviously been accumulating, '- slept in.'

'Alright,' Farah said, trying not to sound judgemental.

MacDuff kicked some of the wires away and created a path to a large leather sofa in the middle of the room, which had seen much better days. He gestured that they should sit down. Both Amanda and Todd obliged but Farah -- who still didn't entirely trust the man that had shot up their office yesterday -- did not.

'What is this?' Amanda asked, sounding somewhat in awe.

'Oh, it's, uh -' MacDuff scratched his head and yawned. He slumped onto a spinning office chair next to desk holding three blinking computer towers. 'I'm testing security for a Chinese banking firm. Trying to hack it. Requires a lot of --' he waved vaguely at the machines.

MacDuff tilted a nearby mug with one finger and peered into it. He made a particularly disgusted face.

'So, you're a white-hat hacker? Is that your job?' Farah asked.

'You know what that is?' Farah stared him down. MacDuff shrugged. 'Yeah -- yeah I guess it is my job. I needed the money for... something. And it's not too difficult to do it -- you really only need a dictionary of common passwords, a few --'

'Something?' Farah prompted. 'Weapons, I suppose?'

MacDuff snorted a laugh. 'Nah. Well, I mean, yeah. That gun didn't come cheap. I want it back by the way '

'Not a chance. Call it a deposit.'

'You're not asking for cash up front?' MacDuff leant back in his chair, putting his hands behind his head. 'That's not the _Holistic Detective Agency_ I know.'

'You were Dirk's client,' Todd said, stiffly.

It was the first time Todd had spoken since entering MacDuff's apartment, and he wasn't hiding how uncomfortable he was. Farah wasn't sure why Todd was behaving so oddly. It was almost like... jealousy?

'Yeah,' MacDuff said, darkly. 'Has he told you what happened? Or has Dirk left it up to me in his usual, ineffable style, to clear the shite up he's made?'

'That isn't the Dirk we know,' Farah said, interrupting before Todd could. Todd fumed, but kept quiet. 'And if you want our help, you should cut all that stuff out. Insulting him isn't going to encourage us to help you.'

MacDuff rolled his eyes. 'Fine. I'll hold it back.'

'Good.'

'So... Should we start at the beginning?' Amanda asked, brightly. She brought out a pen and pad of paper. 

MacDuff snorted. 'Which beginning?'

'Any beginning,' Todd snapped, crossing his arms and leaning back on the sofa.

'Alright. Imagine if you will -' MacDuff grabbed a beer from a cooler underneath his desk. 'A boy of nay twenty-five, who has accidentally left a stupid message on his girlfriend's voicemail.' He broke the cap off the bottle on the desk. 'You might think, hey? What's the problem? But that boy -- he decides that the best decision is to climb up the outside of his girlfriend's block of flats, to try and delete it before she has a chance to play it...'

*

They heard the whole story. Looking back, it was almost impossible for Farah to summarise it, even to herself.

Knowing Dirk -- knowing what Dirk brought to situations, or maybe what the situations brought to Dirk -- let her believe it. But the entire story was so incredible that Farah was within her rights to storm straight out.

But, she didn't. Because time-travelling, dog-humans and electric rhinos.

And, really, what kind of mind -- even a deranged one -- could invent a story about ghosts, aliens, hypnotism and time-travelling, and expect anyone to believe them?

It was just so impossible, it had to be true.

*

'... so, Dirk concluded that someone needed to go back in time to where Coleridge was about to finish _Kubla Khan_ , and distract him -- thereby preventing the non-existence of life on Earth.'

There was a long moment of silence as MacDuff finished his fourth beer. Farah had given up standing after the first half hour and was now perched on the windowsill. Amanda's notepad was almost full with scribble. Todd was staring intently into the floor, refusing to meet anyone's eyes.

'So -- so who went back? Who distracted Coleridge?' Amanda asked.

MacDuff replied mid-swallow. 'I did.'

'You?' Farah was surprised, although she wasn't entirely sure why.

MacDuff nodded. 'Dirk said I should. I bloody believed him -- I thought he was psychic. He's _something_ alright, but he's no' a bloody psychic. He told me to drop him off in Islington -- with a cheque that would clear, of course -- and then me an' Professor Chronotis should travel back and distract 'em.'

'What happened?'

'I distracted Coleridge. Successfully. _Kubla Khan_ only has one verse now. But when we were travelling back to the present, everything went insane.'

'More insane than that!?' Amanda said, disbelieving. 'Wow!'

'I cannae describe it... It was like time itself split in half. I felt like I was dying and being born again at the same time.' MacDuff shuddered. 'I must've passed out, cause when I came too I was back in England -- but it was four fucking years in the future.'

MacDuff looked at the liquid in his last beer and placed it, with finality, on the table.

'I tried to find Susan, an' she had gone. I tried to find Gordon, an' he had gone. I tried to find Michael, same story. It doesn't take a genius to work out what happened, does it? Doesn't take a bloody fake psychic detective. By doing what I did -- what Dirk fucking Gently told me to do -- I had erased them from the timeline.'

'How do you know that? Maybe they just -- moved?' Amanda suggested, weakly.

'I tried speaking to the police, but they said they had no record of her. The council didn't know her -- the taxman didn't know her. I even went to her old work. She was in the Philharmonic, beautiful cellist, unbelievable, really... music was how we met,' MacDuff's memories seemed to give him a flicker of happiness before it died in his eyes. 'An'... nothin'. No records, again. Never heard of her.'

'Did you go back to St. Cedd's?' Amanda asked.

MacDuff slowly shook his head. 'What was the point? Even if -- by some miracle -- Reg had made it back, what was I supposed to do? Go back and undo what I did, and doom life for it? Besides, he never contacted me. I just knew he was gone too. So, I just tried to distract myself. Music, first. Then dealing with all the debt I'd accrued by being out of time for so long. Hence the hacking. You ever tried to catch up on four years worth of computer development? Keeps you occupied.'

'But you remember her,' Farah said, quickly. 'In our experiences with... time travel... nothing actually changed. It was a time loop. If Susan never existed, why would you remember her? Why would Dirk remember her? Why would you have climbed that building?'

'You -- you think they might --' MacDuff was quiet for a bit, rubbing slightly drunkenly at his forehead. 'Might still be alive? Somewhere? But why -- why would they be hiding like this? From me?'

'We could look for them,' Todd said. Everyone looked at him. 'That's kinda what Private Detectives are supposed to do. Locate people. We could at least try.'

*

The centre turned out to be  _St. Carnel's Animal Rescue Centre_ , a squat brick building with a few letters missing from the sign. on that sign, it proclaimed itself to be 'Seattle's Numbe_ One Resc_e and Ad_ption Cen__e' which -- as he had never been to any other -- Dirk instantly agreed with.

Cassie -- the woman's name was Cassie -- had insisted that Dirk go into the reception immediately, whilst she took care of the dogs they had managed to round up and the fat cat.

When Dirk did, and proceeded to announce his name and fling a few business cards around, the receptionist reacted in the same surprise and elation that Cassie had.

'No way! How did Cassie find you? We've been looking for weeks!'

'Er, we just... bumped into one another?' It was technically true.

Dirk was led into a thin corridor-like room filled with cages, which smelled of strong disinfectant and pet food. These cages were smaller than the dog ones, and all held cats.

Dirk tried to catch each pair of large, amber eyes. He was upset of the condition of their fur and their general malaise, but slightly assured that they were being taken care of. Cassie had told him they were a No Kill shelter. Dirk hadn't been aware there was another kind.

The receptionist led Dirk past row upon row of cages, until she stopped and announced: 'Here she is!'

She grabbed the small clipboard which was attached to one of the cages, which was swinging down on a length of string. 'Ginger!'

Dirk looked in this cage and instantly knew three things.

Firstly, there was indeed, a case.

Secondly, he had to go to London as soon as possible.

Thirdly -- and most importantly -- he was going to have to buy another basket.

*

Todd had been ringing Dirk almost constantly since they left MacDuff's apartment. It was characteristic of Dirk to sleep in until late afternoon unless prompted, but he always woke up to answer his cell.

After everything that had happened, Todd was on high alert -- which is how he justified asking Farah to kick in Dirk's door.

Dirk's apartment looked as if a bomb had gone off. Ripped open trash bags spilled their contents on the floor. There wasn't an inch of carpet that wasn't covered by something -- clothes, books, empty takeout containers, wrappers, newspapers, unopened mail. A large book case had been tipped onto its side, with all its contents unloaded onto the ground.

Todd's stomach dropped. Farah leapt into the room. She smoothly drew her weapon and crossed through. She kicked open the door to Dirk's bedroom. She disappeared inside, presumably to clear it.

At that point, Dirk picked up his cell.

'Hi!' Dirk announced in a cheery, sing-song voice.

'Dirk? Dirk, are you okay? Tell me you're okay ' Todd could hear blood rushing in his ears. Farah came back into the room, nodded, and the proceeded to repeat her actions on the bathroom door. 'If you're not safe -- I mean, if you can't say you're not safe -- cough or hit a key or something.'

'What? Todd, you're acting very strange,' Dirk sounded playful. 'I'm fine!'

Todd believed him -- Dirk was useless at acting -- and felt his pulse level out. Dirk was safe. He hadn't been kidnapped. He was safe. Todd realised he was shaking with adrenaline.

'Oh thank God. Dirk -- Dirk I think someone's been in your apartment. It's been -- it's been trashed '

Farah came back into the room and holstered her weapon.

'Is that Dirk? Is he okay?' Farah asked, urgently.

Todd nodded at her.

'Oh. That's -- that's uh ' Dirk didn't sound worried. In fact, he sounded guilty. 'Could you perhaps describe how you believe my apartment is, uh, trashed?' His voice went very small and high.

'There's -- there's garbage everywhere. Your bookcase's been tipped over. Your sink --' Todd's brain finally caught up with his eyes. Through the breakfast nook, he could see a teetering pile of dirty dishes. Realisation dawned. 'Your sink. Your sink is -- oh, for fuck's sake, Dirk. Is this how you live?'

'Farah wouldn't let me hire a maid!' Dirk squealed.

'This is the normal state of your apartment!' Todd shouted. Farah crinkled her nose in disgust. 'Dirk, this is a health hazard!'

'Todd! We have more important things to worry about right now then a few dirty dishes --'

'Dirk, that is almost definitely every dish you own! And some of mine! And Farah's! Have you been stealing our plates because you won't clean your own?'

'We have a case, Todd!'

'Yes, we know, Dirk! We've spoken to MacDuff --'

'What? No - no, not MacDuff. Our client is _Michael Walsh_ \-- he has me on retainer -- I've found his cat!'

Todd held back his impulse to throw his phone against the wall. Instead, he put it on speakerphone and dropped it, petulantly, on the table, amidst the developing mould.

'Who the fuck is Michael Walsh?' Todd said, controlling his anger.

'He was my landlord for my flat in Islington. He had a cat -- Ginger -- who often liked to spring herself from her abode and go wandering! She's only got as far as Walthamstow before -- she's entirely outdone herself getting to America!'

'How -- how did you find her?' Farah asked.

'Her chip! She's been chipped and her chip says "Ginger, please return care of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency"! I was always the one who was getting her anyway; Mr Walsh was getting fed up fielding the calls.' Todd wasn't sure whether Dirk had answered Farah's question or not. 'Anyway, now it's crucial that we go to Islington to inform Mr Walsh that we are in possession of his cat!'

'Islington? What -- London?' Farah said. 'Dirk, you don't have a passport --'

'I didn't need one before!'

'You had the CIA helping you before.'

Dirk went silent. Todd -- bereft of anything to do -- began picking up some of the pizza boxes and putting them in a slightly neater pile.

'Well -- well we'll get there anyway,' Dirk said, stubbornly. 'The universe will provide! This is a case!'

'Dirk --' Farah began. Dial-tone erupted from the phone. Dirk had disconnected the call. 'For fuck's sake! I mean -- just for _once_ I wish he lived in our world.'

'He's not wrong --' Todd started. Farah glared at him. Todd held his hands up. 'I'm just saying! We already told MacDuff we need to go to England to work this out properly -- and now this has kind of, you know... Maybe the universe wants us to go to England?'

'Oh, okay,' Farah said, sarcastically. 'So when we're trying to get through security, I'll just tell the TSA that it's fine that an illegal, undocumented, ex-CIA subject psychic detective with no green card or birth certificate wants to fly, because the universe wants him to?' Farah let the stupidity hang, firmly, in the air, and sat down for emphasis. 'What the...?' She stood back up, looking at her backside. 'Oh my god, is that chocolate?! These are new pants! Fuck you, Dirk! Just, fuck you!'

*

After hours of cleaning, Todd dumped the last of the trash on Dirk's curb. It had gone dark, and the entire street glowed a deep yellow-orange from the streetlamps. Todd spotted a familiar black van a few houses down.

He trudged towards it. On approaching, he could make out his sister leaning on the side, watching him. She was holding a cigarette in her fingers, and it was trailing smoke into the black sky.

'Don't know you cigarettes give you cancer?' Todd said, flippantly.

Amanda grinned. 'Good thing this is a joint, then.'

Todd lent on the van next to her. He took the joint when she offered it.

'Smoking stunts your growth ' Amanda giggled. Todd shot her a dark look. 'Oh, come on. You can have a go, but I can't?'

'Yeah, that's how being a big brother works.'

Todd took the smoke into his lungs and held it as long as he could. When he breathed out, the dizzy rush in his head made the knots in his shoulders melt. God, he needed that.

'What's up with you?' Amanda asked. She was looking at him carefully, searching his eyes for something.

Todd shrugged. 'Nothing.'

'You're lying. Something's up. I thought we were done with the lies?'

Todd let the comment slide, taking another drag. 'I'm not lying. I'm not -- I'm not trying to lie. I don't know what's wrong.'

That was the honest truth. Something was wrong, but he couldn't put his finger on it. It was something to do with Dirk. With England. With MacDuff. With these possible, other assistants that Dirk had. Bastards.

Oh.  _Oh._

'Oh _shit_ ,' Todd said. 'I think I'm jealous.'

'Well, that was fucking obvious,' Amanda laughed. 'Pass that back.'

'What do you mean _obvious_?' Todd squeaked.

Amanda accepted the joint with a grin. 'Well, maybe obvious to me. You get stuck on things. This time, it's MacDuff's case, isn't it? The first one -- when Dirk was in England.' Todd utterly refused to say anything. Amanda was dead on the money. 'What's got up your ass about it?'

Usually, there would be no way Todd would even _think_ of talking to his sister about something like this, but he felt so relaxed for the first time in months. 

'Just -- he's told me about Black Wing. That stuff was fucked up.'

Todd had hated hearing about it. Dirk had spoken about his time there -- the abuse disguised as experiments, how much Dirk had longed a normal childhood, the grey cell with a small cot that was his one-room home for years on end -- and Todd had listened as a friend. But it had made Todd so angry, more than Dirk ever was about it. No one deserved their freedom taken from them, especially a child, but _so_ especially Dirk. Dirk only ever thought the best about everyone, was endlessly trusting, was helpful to an absolute fault...

'And...?'

Todd took the joint back and inhaled again. The buzz returned, but it tasted different. Not as strong. Lost, somehow.

'If he was alright telling me about that stuff, why the hell hasn't he said anything about MacDuff? He's never said anything about London,' Todd paused. 'Why doesn't he trust me?'

And there it was. The truth. There was this whole section of Dirk's life that he didn't trust Todd -- his best friend and assistant -- with, and it made Todd feel... well, feel like shit.

And if Dirk couldn't trust him... well. Todd would just feel like absolute shit. Which he did.

'Oh, _Todd_ \--'

Amanda was cut off by a huge roar from behind her.

The van began to shake. Todd leapt away from it.

The sliding door slammed open and the Rowdy Three -- all four of them -- burst onto the road. Cross grabbed Todd by the collar of his t-shirt before he could get away.

'I'm not having an attack!' Todd shouted, trying unsuccessfully to fight him off. 'Amanda, get your boyfriends off me!'

'You smell --' Cross growled. Todd grabbed onto Cross' hands, digging his fingers in. Cross didn't even flinch. 'Like _chocolate_.'

'What?' Todd struggled as hard as he could. 'Goddamn -- Amanda!'

Amanda just stood by, her eyes glinting with bizarre enjoyment.

Todd was surrounded by all four of them. The other three started to sniff him, like hungry dogs determining whether something was food. Todd spluttered protests as Vogel stuffed his hands into Todd's jeans.

'Fuck off! Fuck off, you assholes!' 

Vogel's hand came away clutching something. 

'This it? This it?' Vogel asked, holding it in the air. 

Todd recognised it as half a candy bar. He had put it in his pocket while clearing up Dirk's apartment. He was going to throw it out, but he realised halfway to the curb that it was Dirk's expensive British-import chocolate, and had decided to bring it back in.

Cross dropped Todd to the ground. Todd shouted in pain as his back hit the pavement.

The three others surrounded the bar and sniffed it.

'Yeah. Yeah that's it --' Martin growled. 'I remember it.' 

'Do you remember what she said?' Gripps said, lowly.

'We open the box!' Martin replied.

'We open the box! We open the box!' Cross echoed.

The four of them started screaming, shouting and slamming on the floor.

Gripps and Cross leaned down and grabbed Martin by his legs. They pushed him up and onto the top of the van. Martin landed, cat-like, and started rummaging around the blankets, wooden boxes and plastic crates that they had chained to the roof-rack.

After half a minute, Martin held up a black metal box the size of a suitcase with an animal howl. The other three howled back, as did Amanda.

Martin jumped down, landing on his feet, holding the box in his arms. Cross was chanting 'Open! Open! Open!' Vogel was lost in mania, slamming his hands on the van door, making it rattle. Even Gripps -- usually the last to show real excitement -- was grinning.

Todd noticed something on the box. A symbol, carved into the metal in gold.

'That's the Icarus symbol,' Todd said, disbelievingly 'That's Dirk's -- where did you get that?'

'Chocolate lady,' Cross said, sticking out his tongue with a wide grin. 'Chocolate lady told us!'

Martin put his fingers onto the edges of the box and pulled. He struggled and begun to scream with the effort of tearing the metal apart. Eventually, it gave, and split in two, cracking the case like an egg.

Todd fought through the boys to see what was inside. It was mostly paper -- official looking documents with CIA headers. Todd grabbed as much as he could, aware of the Rowdy Three's predilection to setting anything flammable on fire.

He came away with a handful of documents and a cassette tape. Three of the documents made him break into a ridiculous, face-splitting grin.

A Romanian birth certificate, an English passport, and a Certificate of U.S Naturalization, all in the name of Svlad Cjelli.


	3. Lighting Strikes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirk, Farah and Todd travel to London to investigate two cases. Amanda, Richard MacDuff and the Rowdy Three try to get to the bottom of unexplained lightening strikes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major-ish spoilers for the first Dirk Gently book. Although in this universe the story is slightly different, it still spoils the final solution.

Dirk arrived home in the early hours of the morning after two buses, entirely exhausted and in quite considerable pain.

He hadn't dared to look at where the seatbelt had clenched over him, but he could feel that there were bruises. His shoulder - the one already weak from the electric crossbow wounds he had received during the Patrick Spring case - was in agony. And, to top it all, Ginger had been awake - and headache-inducingly loud - for all of the journey.

Dirk hadn't remembered the cat as being very vocal, but now she would just not shut up. She had been meowing constantly, and she scratched viciously at Dirk's hand when he tried to soothe her through the bars of the cage with head scritches. Dirk had eventually given up trying to calm her down and left her free to take her rage out on the metal carry case.

Dirk stumbled up the stairs to his apartment, blissfully imagining himself in his bed. He fumbled for his keys in his pocket but, on turning the corner to his floor, he saw that his door was already open.

Despite the pain and tiredness, Dirk smiled happily. Todd was inside, waiting for him.

Todd was slumped on Dirk's leather couch. His eyes were closed, peacefully, and had Dirk's thick woollen blanket pulled over himself. Dirk looked at him for a long while, just enjoying the sight of his best friend, who had stayed to make sure he got home alright.

_I have a best friend!_

Dirk smiled even harder; the thought so wonderful it made Dirk want to punch the air. For so long people had just flickered through his life - clients, assistants, clues, policemen, doctors, parapsychologists - that just having someone who was just there, for no reason other than being there... well. It was such an overwhelming, fantastic feeling.

And Todd wasn't just a best friend. Somehow - without even trying - he had become home.

Dirk bent over to put Ginger's basket on the floor. His chest burned and his shoulder screamed. He grabbed his shoulder and gasped in pain.

'Dirk?'

Dirk looked up. Todd was awake, looking dazed, sleep-drunk and confused. Dirk really liked that look on him. Relaxed and carefree was a good look for Todd.

Todd soon looked less sleepy and more concerned. His normal anxieties flickered into his face, as if they had been switched on like a bedside light.

'Are you okay? Jesus - Dirk, you're bleeding -'

'No, I'm not; don't be silly.'

Todd frowned and gestured to Dirk's shirt. Dirk looked at himself. There was, indeed, a large smudge of blood across his chest.

'Ah.' Dirk panicked. Had he hurt himself in some way he hadn't recognised? Dirk felt himself all over and then looked at his hands. They were covered in cat scratches. One of the larger ones had opened. Small drops of blood were forming across his palm.

'Oh! Oh, _that_ -' Dirk dismissed, wiping the rest of the blood off his hand onto the already ruined shirt. 'The hazards of an excited cat, Todd! A cat who is excited to be with someone whom she recognises! So excited, in fact, that she's turned quite, uh, violent. It's that kind of excited violence, Todd; it's very, _very_ normal -'

Todd wasn't listening. He had pulled himself up, dumping the blanket on the couch, and gone to the kitchen. Dirk distracted himself from watching by unbuckling the clasps on the cat basket.

Ginger fought valiantly the entire time, pushing her face at the gap between the basket and the cage plate until Dirk loosened it enough for her to wiggle out.

Todd came back with a handful of plasters, a wad of wet kitchen towel and a bottle of antiseptic. He dumped everything but the kitchen towel on the table.

'Shouldn't we get Bernice before letting her loose?' Todd asked as Ginger finally escaped and bolted across the floor.

'Why?'

'Isn't that what you're supposed to do with new cats? Introduce them on neutral ground?'

Todd grabbed Dirk's hands and began to wipe the blood away with the kitchen towel.

Dirk shook his head, chidingly: 'Todd. Remember; Bernice is a shark. Cat stuff is an entirely foreign culture to her.'

Ginger had got to her feet and was looking around the apartment. She didn't appear to sniff much, preferring instead to peer into corners. She often looked back at Dirk - for support, Dirk hoped, although the look in her eyes was more accusing than friendly.

'Hmm,' Dirk began, thinking aloud. 'Something in her journey to America has clearly changed her, Todd. Ginger was a relatively normal - if anarchically free-roaming - cat when I knew her Islington.'

'Uh huh,' Todd murmured.

'Yes, and she was always friendly. Never vicious. This Ginger - although undoubtedly the same cat - is a lot more war- _Ow_!' Dirk hissed as Todd wiped some of the antiseptic onto his cuts. 'I have no idea why, in this day and age, someone has - ow! - not worked out how to provide functional medical care without it - ow! - stinging so badly!'

'Maybe it's supposed to encourage you to stop getting hurt,' Todd mused, peeling a plaster away from its backing.

Dirk let out a miffed noise. 'It's not my choice to get hurt! It just happens. A lot.'

Todd gave a small sympathetic smile. He stuck a long plaster across the centre of Dirk's palm, pressing it down firmly. His attention was remarkably soothing. Dirk used to hate being patched up - it brought bad memories of faceless doctors, large needles and prolonged periods of unconsciousness - but Todd's touch was always gentle and caring.

'Todd, I honestly have no idea why you never sought out a position in the medical field. You have an exceptional bedside manner. You would make a commendable nurse. Although,' Dirk mused, as the tips of Todd's ears went red. 'I would miss you at my Agency. So, maybe you shouldn't be a nurse. Is that plaster not sticking?'

'Hmm?' Todd murmured, distracted. Todd had been slowly rubbing over the plaster, almost massaging Dirk's hand at this point. Todd froze and dropped Dirk's hand as if it had burst on fire. 'Oh! Yeah - sorry.'

A distant 'murph?' announced that Ginger had pushed her way into Dirk's bedroom. Her ability to do so without bringing down the mountain of pizza boxes that had previously been hiding behind his bedroom door made Dirk finally realise that his apartment was... clean?

'Wait - clean?' Dirk said loudly, astounded.

He spun around, suddenly aware of all the changes. All his dishes had been washed. He could see his kitchen surfaces. The floor was bare. Even the free-standing bookshelves were back up. All the books and little trinkets which had come with the fully-furnished apartment were back in their places, with the same squeaky-clean look that Dirk had found on the day he got his keys.

'Todd! Oh gods, you've cleaned!' Dirk was overjoyed. He jumped, unable to express the joy any other way.

'Yeah...'

Dirk looked back at his friend. Todd looked entirely exhausted, and he hadn't been on two buses today - at least, not to Dirk's knowledge. Dirk put two and two together and made four.

'Oh, bloody hell, you didn't have to do that,' Dirk winced. 'There was such a mess...'

'No, it's fine. It was... something to do,' Todd shrugged. 'Keep my housekeeping skills in check. I've dealt with worse you should have seen some of the rooms at the hotel. Actually, it's probably better that you didn't...'

'Thank you, Todd. I really... thanks.'

Todd smiled, genuinely. Dirk felt warmth flush into his face.

'Just... try not to let it get into the same state next time?' Todd said, hopefully.

'I'll try my best!' Dirk said. Todd looked entirely unconvinced which - even Dirk had to admit - was pretty fair. 'Anyway, for the next few days it shall remain as spotless as this since I'm going to be back in London!' Dirk clicked his fingers as he realised something. 'Ooh, I'm going to have to find a cat sitter for both Ginger _and_ Bernice now... Unless! Since my apartment is so wonderfully habitable again you wouldn't mind cat-sitting whilst I'm away? I don't mean to impose, but I don't know how easy it's going to be to find someone whose aware of Bernice's particular - ah - needs?'

Todd's brow furrowed. 'What do you mean? Dirk, I'm coming with you.'

Dirk was confused. 'You can't.'

Todd looked suddenly angry.

'Why?' he asked, briskly.

'Your - the pararibulitis,' Dirk blinked, confused, when explaining didn't make Todd understanding and accepting but instead made him scowl harder. 'The Rowdy Three are absolutely _not_ coming with us - there's no way they can be on a plane. They're on several no-fly lists and they have always reacted adversely to pressurisation. You need them to deal with your attacks -'

'You're fucking benching me because of that?' Todd looked furious.

'What? No - Todd - I'm not -' Dirk didn't even know what benching was, but he was certainly not doing it to Todd.

'You let - no, you encouraged Amanda to help us before we even knew what the Rowdy Three could do -!'

'I encouraged her to leave the house, Todd. Not get involved in active case work!' Why the hell was Todd so angry? 'You'll get - you'll be - you'll have no way of dealing with your attacks -'

'The pills -'

'You know the pills aren't enough, Todd -'

Todd glared at him. 'Then I'll do something else,' he announced, defiantly. 'Amanda's got loads of ways of dealing with it. She used to take ice packs with her - or sand for the fires. Stress toys, avoid coffee...'

Dirk couldn't imagine anything worse than his best friend being forced to be constantly on high-alert due to his condition. Todd's screams as his body betrayed him were some of the most unfavourable sounds Dirk had ever heard. Dirk didn't have the benefit of being a naturally nursey-type person like Todd. When Todd was having an attack, Dirk _was_ filled with the frustratingly overwhelming urge to do something that he supposed nurses should be, but Dirk never had any idea what that something was. So, he usually ran into another room, incompetent and worthless, as Amanda or Farah coached Todd through it.

All Dirk could do was to try and stop it happening, any way he could.

'It's okay, Todd!' Dirk interrupted Todd's stream-of-consciousness, as soothingly as he could manage. 'I don't need you to come - I'll be fine without you!'

It was as if Todd had been physically slapped. All the anger drained from his face and was replaced with a hurt so vibrant it stung. The implications of what he had said came to Dirk with growing dread.

'No - no, wait - that's not what I meant -'

Todd looked at the carpet. After a second of silent staring, he wordlessly stormed towards the door.

'Todd, please -!'

The poor, abused door crashed shut behind him and then unceremoniously fell off its hinges.

*

Todd slammed the door to his apartment closed and then leaned his back against it, his head in an absolute storm.

How fucking dare he? Fuck Dirk Gently. Fuck him!

Todd slid down the door until he sat, crunched up against it. He gripped his knees with his hands and snarled.

Fuck him so, _so_  hard.

Dirk didn't need him. That much had become bitterly true. He needed Farah for the firepower, he needed Amanda for the control she had over the Rowdy Three... what the hell did he need Todd for? Cat sitting. Fucking _cat sitting_.

Todd shoved his hand in his jacket pocket. He pulled out the handful of documents - Dirk's passport, birth certificate and citizenship papers - and genuinely thought about ripping them into shreds. He didn't, because he wasn't that much of a dick, but the thought of doing so gave him pleasure for a few moments.

There was something else in his pocket. Todd put the documents down on the carpet and felt inside his jacket. His hand emerged holding a tape cassette. It was tiny, neatly fitting in his palm. He must had picked it up unwittingly, along with the rest of Dirk's stuff, when scrabbling through the box earlier.

He rolled it over in his fingers. There was a sticker across the top of the tape, on which someone had written something in blocky capital letters.

**02.11.95 SR INT CC**

Todd sighed and rubbed his forehead. What was he doing? He wanted out. Out of Dirk's envelope of Dirkness that now possessed his entire life. Nothing was Todd's anymore. Everything he owned, everything he loved, everything he was had been twisted and fucked with by that stupid, inconsiderate asshole.

Todd shut his eyes against the world and tried to breathe.

*

 **Several More Years Earlier**  
_Cambridge_

Svlad Cjelli knocked in what he hoped was a light, chatty, un-interrupting-like way on the thick wooden door of Professor Chronotis' office.

There was a sound of china clanging, paper rustling and the squawking of an irritated parrot from the other side of the door.

'Coming! Just a minute!'

The voice that replied sounded irritate and tense. Svlad swallowed. He hoped he hadn't made a bad first impression. It was difficult to judge whether one had, when first impressions were through doors.

After more rustling, clanging and squawking, behind the door fell silent. Then, the door handle rattled and twisted, and the door opened.

Dirk's first impression of Professor Chronotis was that he was a reasonably tall man, with short black hair that was flecked on the sides of his head with grey. He had a lot of laughter lines and wild blue eyes which sparkled, knowingly.

'Yes?' he asked.

'I'm - er -' Svlad swallowed, trying to remember the words he had rehearsed. He couldn't, so he stuck out his hand instead. 'Svlad. Svlad Cjelli.'

'Oh, thank the Lord,' Professor Chronotis sighed. 'I thought you were a student.'

'I am a student.'

Svlad put his hand down when it became apparent Professor Chronotis was not going to take it. The Professor was evidently _not_ a hand shaker. Svlad added the new fact to his mental list.

'Oh, my poor dear boy, I am so sorry,' Professor Chronotis didn't sound like he was apologising for his assumption, but rather he sounded genuinely upset to hear the news, as if Svlad had just announced his mother was ill. 'Postgraduate or undergraduate?'

'Er, undergraduate. First year.'

'Ah! So it isn't terminal!' Professor Chronotis clapped his hands together, seeming genuinely pleased. 'There's still time for you, dear boy!'

Professor Chronotis laughed, as if he had made a joke. Svlad didn't follow but smiled anyway. He had a feeling he would like this man - this _Professor Chronotis_ \- and his feelings were never wrong.

'What can I help you with, Svlad Cjelli?'

'I've been assigned you as my personal tutor. I thought I should introduce myself, Professor Chronotis.'

'Oh, have you? How intriguing...' Professor Chronotis rubbed his chin, as if his arrival fitted into a larger puzzle. Svlad expanded upon his first feeling and decided he would really, really like Professor Chronotis. 'Do call me Reg. Everyone else does, and who am I to question the wisdom of the masses? Come in! Come in, dear boy! Would you like some tea?'

'Yes,' Svlad replied immediately. He had years of tea drinking to make up for.

Professor Chronotis - Reg - stepped away from the door, gesturing Svlad inside. He then continued moving across his office and through a doorway into an adjoining room.

Svlad took in his first real look at his personal tutor's office. It was fantastically messy. There were piles of teetering books everywhere. Abandoned tea cups balanced precariously on every surface. A wastepaper bin was overflowing with multicoloured balls of paper and the skins of interesting fruits. There were stuffed eagles and owls and pigeons caught in perpetual flight, dangling on long plastic strings from the ceiling. Everywhere Svlad looked there was a new exciting thing to stare at.

Svlad re-evaluated his second opinion on his first feeling; he would really, really, _really_ like Professor Chronotis.

Reg returned barely a few seconds later with a tray containing three cups, a teapot, a small sugar bowl and a glass pint bottle of milk.

He gestured towards two large wing-backed chairs set in front of a small, wooden coffee table. Svlad took a plush, warm seat.

Svlad noted that the teapot was steaming. There hadn't been enough time to boil a kettle, surely? Maybe he had already made a pot for himself, and Svlad just happened to call at the right time... but something sat wrong about that conclusion in Svlad's mind.

He was about to ask about it, when a loud squawk erupted from the room off to the left side of them.

'Shut up, Lexington!' Reg yelled, making the tray rattle. Svlad jumped in surprise. Reg shook his head, exasperated, and put the tray on the coffee table. 'I must apologise dear boy - I have a parrot in.'

'A parrot in what?'

' _In_ , Svlad, _in_!' Reg failed to clarify. He began to pour into two cups. 'He followed me home three days ago and he absolutely refuses to leave. It's very rude.'

Svlad added sugar and milk to his tea. He thought out loud: 'Why does he refuse to leave? Have you asked him?'

Reg opened his mouth, then closed it again, frowning. He seemed to be stumped.

'Lexington?' he called. 'Lexington, why do you refuse to leave?'

There was a bit of silence as Reg waited. Svlad drank his tea as quietly as he could. After half a minute, Reg got to his feet and walked into the room where the squawking had been coming from.

He came back in a few second later, astonished.

'He's gone! The blasted bird has finally fucked off! How did you do it, Svlad?'

'He must have just wanted someone to take a bit of an interest in him...' Svlad shrugged. 'It seemed like the right thing to do, to ask.'

'Yes but how did you know?'

Reg stared at him. The pressure of his eyes started to build in Svlad's mind. Svlad swallowed thickly, trying not to panic, but then the words got too large to deal with and -

'I'm not psychic!' Svlad blurted.

Embarrassed, Svlad tried to cover his flushing face with some more tea drinking.

Reg just laughed and smiled.

'Of course not, dear boy! That would be far too uninteresting...'

*

**Present Day**

Dirk woke up gasping, pulling himself from the tendrils of his dream.

Bernice, who had been wrapped around Dirk's head, was shocked off the bed with a strangled and irritated 'mrph!'.

Dirk was soaked in sweat. His legs were twisted in his sheets. His heart was beating so fast it felt close to exploding. Guilt was savaging him in the way only guilt could. It had driven him almost catatonic before. In the Agency. When MacDuff had -

_When MacDuff had said -_

Dirk put his hands over his eyes and tried to calm down.

'Hold it together, Gently,' Dirk muttered to himself. 'You're not alone here. You have -' Dirk almost said "Todd" and the exploding-guilt-feeling tripled. 'Shit. Okay - Okay... You - you have Amanda... and you have Farah. And you have Bernice. And -'

He was losing the battle to stave off his panic. His mind was exploding. He was losing his grip.

Dirk had ended him. Dirk had ended Reg. Reg was one of those rare people in the world that Dirk really liked and who liked Dirk back. Dirk could count them on one hand. Now, there was the need for one less finger.

Dirk fumbled for something - _anything_ \- in his bed that he could hold onto. His left hand eventually found one of his metal bed posts. Dirk squeezed it, as tightly as he could manage. It was cold and firm and above all _real_.

Dirk breathed deeply. His bruised ribs complained, but the pain somehow made everything more firm. Dirk huffed his breath out, trying to make his ribs hurt as much as possible. His shoulder joined in, achingly stiff from sleep. With every stab of pain, the world got a little less spinny.

Bernice jumped back onto the bed and gave him an angry glare before settling down beside him.

When Dirk felt he could let go of the bed post without falling into oblivion, he scratched her head. He quietly whispered a thanks to her for not sharking his bedroom and she chirped at him, fondly.

The universe slowed to a more manageable rate.

*

'Whoa,' Amanda announced as she walked into the Agency in the morning, carrying three Starbucks cups in a cardboard holder. 'This is some real detective shit right here!'

The back wall had been stripped of its usual cat painting. Printed photographs of people and places had been pinned up alongside official looking documents.

Red thread connected together some of the pins, and black thread connected others. It looked like something the police would create to try and catch a serial killer. It was instantly, unaccountably _cool_.

Farah was sitting at her desk, twirling a pen around her fingers and looking at the wall. Todd was tapping quietly on his laptop, sitting cross-legged on the floor.

Amanda put the coffee down on Dirk's unoccupied desk and walked over to the wall.

'Is this all we know?' she asked, looking over it.

In the centre, there was a printed photo of Richard MacDuff in his apartment. It was a photo which Amanda recognised as taking herself had taken at their first interview.

'It's all MacDuff - _Richard_ \- can tell us,' Farah said, tapping her pen on the desk. 'He can't remember everything I'd like him to remember, of course...'

'She interviewed him for hours -' Todd looked up from his laptop, smirking at his sister. 'It was like bad-cop bad-cop, if there was only one cop and they had mad OCD.'

'How can you not know your partner's passport number, or at least have it on file somewhere?!' Farah asked, exasperatedly. 'It's not OCD to have a record of bank account details or income tax statements either, Todd!'

Todd gave Amanda a look which clearly expressed how OCD he felt that was. Amanda grinned at him, then tried to recall whether she had ever paid income tax.

Amanda returned to the wall. The MacDuff photo was connected by four lengths of thread to four areas of the wall. Each area was headed with a piece of paper, on which the names 'SUSAN WAY', 'GORDON WAY', 'MICHAEL WENTON-WEAKES' or 'PROFESSOR URBAN CHRONOTIS ("REG")' were written in fat, black marker.

The first three areas were pretty sparse, with just one sheet of paper each on which Amanda's typed up notes from the first meeting with MacDuff were displayed. The fourth area the one under Professor Chronotis' name had more. There were photos, printed newspaper articles, and countless front pages for what looked like thesis' based around of the philosophy of chronology - whatever the hell that was - all signed off under his name.

'Hey, you found him!' Amanda said, excited.

'It wasn't too difficult,' Todd shrugged. Amanda could tell he was still a bit proud. 'Nothing past 2008 though, which is when they left for their whole... time travel escapade. But he definitely existed. The problem is, a lot of the stuff on the University website is locked down to faculty -'

'So, we're going to go to England,' Farah said, firmly.

She said it so firmly that Amanda was a bit confused. She looked between her brother and Farah. Farah was looking determinedly at Todd. Todd was steadfastly avoiding meeting her eyes, staring a hole into his laptop screen.

'It's a waste of time to try and find people half-way across the globe from here, and MacDuff is fine paying for the tickets,' Farah continued.

'Cool,' Amanda said. 'Buy me a hat? One of those massive black ones that the Queen's soldiers wear.'

'You're okay with not going?' Todd asked, shutting his laptop lid.

He looked overly concerned. Amanda gave him a careful smile, unsure.

'I was supposed to go? I don't... I mean, it would be fun, I guess... but who's gonna take care of things here?'

It was a half-truth; although Amanda would be happy to stay to man the office phones or deal with the occasional walk-in, she was thinking of her boys first and foremost. The Rowdy Three were who she went home to, who she went out with and - above all - _who she belonged to_. She was happy enough to go along with cases when Dirk brought the five of them into the fray (which was more often than not), but it wasn't her entire life.

'Thanks, Amanda,' Farah said, smiling. 'Anyway, we'll need you here to interview Richard and make sure he doesn't - um -'

'Try and destroy our office again?' Amanda helpfully supplied. 'No problem. The only people allowed to wreck this place are us. Ooh! Is Dirk gonna go?'

Todd viciously slammed open his laptop again and buried his head in it. Farah gave him a discontented side-eye glare.

'We think he's likely to want to go on his own accord. He has his own thing,' Farah explained.

Amanda mouthed "What the fuck is up with Todd?" silently at Farah.

Farah exasperatedly shook her hands. She mouthed back: "He's being a crazy person!" and gave appropriate hand movements.

Todd looked up. Amanda shot him a wide, innocent smile.

*

Farah collapsed into her seat on their non-stop flight from Sea-Tac to London, Heathrow with overwhelming relief.

They were in first class. The fact that they were on a plane at all was entirely surprising considering how Dirk had been actively trying to get them all detained.

Dirk had refused to accept being referred to as "Mister Cjelli" and constantly corrected everyone, which made every single passport check ten minutes longer as the airport staff checked and rechecked his documentation.

Dirk had spoke loudly and enthusiastically about bomb threats and explosions (apparently he had been involved in a case with an exploding check-in desk) in front of every TSA officer he could seem to find.

Dirk hand also gone off on a rant about how much he hated airports and airplanes in general which lasted a good half-hour in the departure lounge. Todd - who had never flown before - was slightly nervous, and Dirk's loud and lengthy knowledge on plane crashes did not help.

Still, that was all over now. Or, at least it was over for another nine-and-a-half hours, when Dirk could repeat it all again at Heathrow.

Farah tried to settle herself into a meditative state and wipe her mind clean.

She was quite used to first-class, as it was how Patrick liked to travel. The large, leather seats had space around them, allowing them to swivel freely. They had a television screen at head-height in front and a small, wooden table arrangement on the side.

Todd sat directly opposite her, his eyes wide and astounded as he looked around the plush niceties of the cabin. Dirk was off to her left, and seemed less than impressed. He slumped into his seat like a toddler and glared at the flight attendant who had previously told him to stop talking about his theories of the Bermuda Triangle quite so loudly, as it was upsetting the rest of the passengers.

That incident had occured before they had been bumped to first class. Why exactly they had been bumped, Farah wasn't sure. The American Airlines system might have seen her past flight records and thought she was due an upgrade, or they might have simply overbooked in coach or - maybe - it was the universe _finally_ giving her a break. In the first class cabin, it appeared it would only be them. Farah was infinitely grateful.

They began to taxi and Todd jolted with the unexpected movement.

'Hey, Todd -' Farah caught Todd's eye. 'It's going to be fine, okay?'

'I'm not nervous,' Todd quite obviously lied. Farah could see his pulse-point throbbing in his neck, and he was sweating a little.

'I know,' Farah said, her smile placating. She reached into her hand luggage. 'But if you were, that's okay. Lydia never got on with flying, so I usually pack these anti-anxiety pills out of habit. If you want to try them -' Farah lifted out a small, blue bottle and rattled it, '- just say. It doesn't knock you out, just makes everything a little less -'

Todd held out his hand and urgently beckoned her. Farah gave him a supportive grin and threw him the bottle.

*

'Three-and-a-half hours left!' Dirk announced, exasperated. 'How is that even possible? Who the hell put America so far away from England!?'

Farah looked up from her book and rolled her head to look over at Dirk. He was softly bashing his head on the wall, groaning morosely. Farah had never dealt with toddlers, but she guessed she had a pretty good idea about them now.

'Try to go to sleep,' Farah suggested, trying to mellow out her irritation. Light jazz music was playing soothingly into her earbuds, but there were limits as to what could placate her.

Dirk rolled his eyes at her. 'Oh, _sure_. I'll just simply sleep. How can anyone sleep in this impossibly flying tin full of easily ignitable jet-fuel and fire?'

Farah glared at him and quickly shot a look at Todd. Todd was still asleep, his seat stretched out below him. He was curled onto one side with a sleeping mask on and plugs in his ears, entirely dead to the world. The pills had had more of a sedative effect than they did on Lydia, due to the combination with Todd's anti-pararibulitis medication, which Farah had made sure of before the flight.

'Stop saying stuff like that! You'll scare Todd,' Farah hissed.

'Todd shouldn't even be here!' Dirk said, exasperated.

'What the hell is with you?' Farah pulled her headphones out of her ears. 'You're being such an asshole.'

Dirk looked shocked. 'I - I,' Dirk set his jaw. 'Well, if I am being an asshole, I'm being a purposeful asshole. An asshole with purpose is not a true asshole.'

Farah let the stupidity of Dirk's comment hang in the air for a beat. 'What's your purpose here? To torture Todd?'

'No!' Dirk sounded offended. 'I'm -' Dirk looked at Todd and a flicker of concern passed over his face. 'I didn't want him to leave America.'

'Why?'

'He can't control his attacks in England. How the hell are we supposed to stop him getting hurt if he constantly keeps putting himself in harm's way?'

Farah was stunned. 'Do you - Dirk, do you understand how rich that is coming from you?'

'...I'm afraid I don't follow.' Dirk looked entirely blank.

'Of course you don't,' Farah sighed.

She put her headphones back in and returned to her book.

*

'Hellooooo?' Amanda called, sticking her head into Richard MacDuff's open apartment. 'This is your three pm check-you're-still-alive call?'

There was a loud groan from the bedroom. Satisfied she wasn't walking in on a murder or suicide scene, Amanda pushed the door further open - which involved shoving away empty takeaway containers and beer bottles.

'Is everyone in the UK just insanely shit with cleaning?' she called.

Richard appeared at his bedroom door. He was bleary-eyed and still very obviously half drunk. He wearing boxer shorts and a shirt which professed his allegiance to the 'PC MASTERRACE'. He grunted at her and yawned.

'Hello to you too!' Amanda said, cheerily.

'You don't have to keep callin' on me,' Richard muttered, leaning on the bedroom door-frame.

'If we don't keep you alive, we don't get paid,' Amanda said, stomping over the rubbish to get to the kitchen.

'I'll put you in my will,' Richard called. 'All proceeds to go to the insane Dirk Gently and his equally insane friends, who were almost likely involved in my death.'

Amanda began to fill a large, red kettle from the kitchen tap.

'If you really think we're insane, it's surprising you hired us.'

'Yeah, well -' Richard walked into the the kitchen and stood at the door, watching Amanda move around. 'My intention wasn't to hire you in the first place, was it?'

Amanda left a silence. Farah had been teaching her how effective silence could be in coaxing people into saying things they didn't want to say. Amanda thought that beating them with baseball bats did an equally good job of it, but she wasn't opposed to trying out some of Farah's tricks.

'I - I wasn't actually gonna kill Dirk,' Richard eventually said, his voice low and gruff.

Amanda grinned, pleased with herself.

'That was obvious; your shot was really shitty.'

'I just wanted to scare him - I didn't want him thinkin' he got away wi' what he did.'

'From what you told me, he didn't do _anything_.'

'Yeah, well,' Richard shrugged.

Amanda put the kettle on a stove top - the one that looked the least covered in grime - and ignited the gas. It took flame with a small puff.

'What made you want to scare him after so much time?' Amanda asked, turning her back on the kettle and looking at Richard proper.

Richard hissed out some air between his teeth looking uncomfortable.

'I - I nearly got hit by lightning.'

Amanda felt her eyebrows fly into her fringe. She had not expected that.

'Oh...kay?'

'Three fucking times!' Richard shouted, exasperated. 'You know, once is all well and good - it's a nice talking point, somethin' for the water cooler on Monday. Twice, you're starting to feel somethin's up, you're no' entirely happy anymore, but _three times_? That's someone - something - out to get yeh.'

'What was out to get you?'

'I donno, the ever-flowing stream of the universe?' Richard said, sarcastically. It struck Amanda as something that Dirk would probably say. Richard continued: 'Anyway, it occurred to me that - if I'd had started to be shot at by lightening before the whole _time incident_  - then I would've probably gone to Dirk abou' it. He was constantly goin' on about weird shit like that at uni. And then I remembered to hate him again. So, I looked him up and came here.'

Amanda tried to work out if that was a reasonable course of action to take. Then again, Richard was a man who had not only lost a large section of his social circle to an apparent time disaster, but was also apparently a target for lightening strikes. He was probably no longer the type of person to take reasonable action.

'Have you been nearly hit by lightening since you've been here?' Amanda asked.

Richard shook his head. 'I've been trackin' storms and staying far clear. It's a bloody miracle I escaped the first three times. The first, four months ago. I was at King's Cross - a train station - an' this bolt just landed three feet away an' scorched the track to shit. The second time, three months ago, I was hiking on Snowden - trying to take my mind off everything - and it took out the branches of the tree above me, set the whole thing on fire. The third time - just two months ago! - I was in China on business, in the swimming pool cooling off, and it hit the tiles about an arm's length away! There's no' fucking pattern I can judge, other that it hits me monthly. Maybe God has PMS an' He's taking it out on me.'

'How long have you been here?'

'What?'

'In America. How long have you been in America?'

'Two months - it took me a while to get the networking arrangement my system required -'

'You've not been hit in America,' Amanda asked, trying to push through Richard's technobabble.

'No?' Richard replied, sounding confused. 'Why does that matter?'

'I'm just wondering why - if you were some kind of lightening rod for monthly strikes - why it's just suddenly stopped?'

*

Amanda pulled open the door to the Rowdy Three's van and shoved Richard inside.

Gripps, Cross and Vogel began sniffing at him. Richard looked suitably alarmed and scrambled for a seat.

Martin, at the wheel, took a glance back inside. Amanda grinned at him as she pulled herself in.

'Storm chasing!' she said, excitedly.

Amanda slammed the door shut behind her.

Martin nodded, gave a pleased, interested smirk, and turned the keys in the ignition.

*

Farah's phone blipped with a new message as soon as she turned it on in the taxi to the hotel.

'Amanda's got a lead. Something to do with... lightening?' Farah read, confused.

She looked up at Dirk, who was sitting in the seat opposite, his back against the driver's partition. Todd was sitting beside her, still a little dopey, but mostly back to normal after an hour in arrivals.

'Dirk? You wanna weigh in on this?' Farah asked, waving her phone. 'Lightening strikes?'

'It's not part of my case,' Dirk said, not meeting Farah's eyes.

Farah was taken aback. Even Todd, who had been avoiding Dirk's attempts at conversation, glanced up in surprise.

'What? What - what happened to everything is connected?' Todd asked, incredulously. 'Isn't that like... the whole basis of holistic detection?'

'Somethings things... aren't connected,' Dirk said. Farah had been specially trained to detect lying through facial microexpressions, but anyone who saw Dirk's face could tell how much he believed his own words were bullshit.

'You're lying,' Todd said, distrustingly slowly. 'Why are you lying?'

Dirk threw his hands up, exasperated.

'This - that! _That case_ - the MacDuff one. It's... it's unsolved.' Dirk winced as he said the word "unsolved", like he had been prodded with something sharp. 'It's not going to be solved. There's no point being hung up on things that can't be changed.'

'Oh,' Todd said, suddenly understanding. 'I remember - I remember that you said that if you didn't solve a case then those cases remained unsolved. Is that what happened to MacDuff's? You didn't solve it?'

It was the first that Farah had heard of any unsolved cases. Dirk looked morose and refused to meet Todd's eyes.

'Dirk - what the hell happened back then?' Farah asked. 'Tell us.'

Dirk let out a long, shuddering breath. He put his head in his hands. Then, after a long moment of silence he recounted the story.

*

**A Really Quite Ridiculous Amount of Years Earlier**

_Bermuda_

'Run!' Dirk shouted, grabbing a hold of Richard's shoulder and gripping it tightly. 'Go! Go! Run now!'

Richard dropped the phone he had been holding.

The three of them - Dirk, Reg and Richard barrelled down Reg's stairs, across his office and towards his door.

Said door was now acting as a porthole-like doorway that led to the barren, unatmosphered wasteland of pre-pre-prehistoric Earth.

Dirk skidded to a halt without crossing the threshold. He looked out, where the ghost who was occupying the body of Michael Wenton-Weakes who was also occupying a scuba suit was slowly making his way across the poisonous ground and towards humanity's doom.

'Shit! Shit! Shit!' Dirk swore. 'We can't get him back!'

'What's happening? Dirk - what's -' Richard began.

Dirk grabbed his assistant by his lapels and shook him, violently.

'I've solved it,' Dirk shouted, angrily. 'I've bloody solved it too late!'

'Dirk -' Richard spluttered, lightly strangled.

' _Dirk!_ ,' Reg barked, sounding stern. 'Clue the damn boy in! And, uh, me too, whilst you're at it -'

It caught Dirk's attention. Dirk shuddered before he started explaining.

'That ghost out there is of an alien race who landed on this planet for colonisation billions of years ago,' Dirk began with the beginning, although they all knew it - mostly due to the exciting theatrics which were being undermined frustratingly by the impending death and destruction of everything. 'When his craft exploded, taking his whole crew with him, he stayed on Earth as a ghost biding his time until he found a soul who had exactly the right fundamental willing as the ghost did - to destroy, to kill!'

Dirk dropped Richard and ran his fingers through his hair.

'It's all connected... the ghost influences Michael to kill this... this new editor person... thereby making him the perfect subject for - for -'

'For what, Dirk?!' Richard yelled, getting to his feet.

'The ghost thinks that we've supplanted his kind here!' Dirk said, sounding as terrified as he felt. 'He thinks this is their planet! He's going to stop the very creation of life itself!'

There was a long and dry silence.

'We probably have two minutes,' Dirk said, estimating how long it would take for ghost-Michael to reach his ship. He felt an almost deathly numbness settle over him.

'We can't do anything?!' Richard squeaked.

Dirk looked around Reg's office for something. Maybe a giant red button that said 'press in case of genocidal alien ghosts'. There was nothing of note except a pair of wingback chairs. One of them was the same chair he had sat in all those years ago as an undergraduate at St Cedd's.

Dirk felt very much like sitting in it. It would be one final up yours to Black Wing, to have failed Riggins' expectations of him so dramatically by dooming the whole of existence, whilst sitting in the chair of the college Dirk had chosen for his new, independent, _finally free_ start.

He had tried so hard. He had followed the universe. He hadn't let anyone, or anything, distract him. He had given up any thought of himself and dedicated his mind and body and soul to his holistic detection. He had barely slept in weeks. He hadn't eaten a proper meal in days. And he had killed _everyone_.

Dirk sat heavily in the chair, then stood up again and removed Michael's discarded jacket from underneath him. As he did so, a book fell out of the pocket, and the last puzzle piece clicked.

'Oh,' Dirk said.

In all his life up to this point, the discovery of a clue had always brought with it an overwhelming, intense feeling of joy to Dirk. This time, he felt nothing. Something was broken inside of him. 

He felt numb.

'I -' Dirk didn't want to say it. He wanted humanity to die and for it to take it with him. He would go willingly, accepting his final destruction as the inevitable consequence of his existence. He couldn't even cry. 'I want to go home.'

But what was home? Was home a castle in Transylvania that he could only remember in brief glimpses in his memory, with a mother and father he couldn't recall at all? Was home a cramped cell in the Black Wing Facility, with screaming and shouting from all four walls and the ceiling and the floor until the small hours of the morning? Was it a dirty flat above a chicken shop in Islington, which was lonely and cold and barren?

'I know how you can save everyone,' Dirk said - lied - to Richard.

Richard's eyes widened, then narrowed with terrified curiosity.

'I'll tell you, but I have to go home,' Dirk said. He couldn't look at Reg. He couldn't look at anyone. He stared at his hands, folded in his lap. 'Take me back to Islington. I can't do this anymore. I'm done.'

*

**Present Day**

'I gave up,' Dirk said, finally.

Todd was watching him closely. The unnameable brightness that had always seemed present in Dirk's face had disappeared, replaced with a shadow that seemed all consuming. His eyes were dull and dead, and he was staring at his hands.

'I - I knew what I had to do -' Dirk's expression was inward-facing and curious, as if he was working everything out again. He sounded intensely young. 'I knew that I... I had to distract Coleridge. Not Richard. _Me_. And I knew that, if I did that, everything would be alright again. But I didn't want to. I didn't want to be the universe's plaything anymore. And - and the universe punished me for it.'

The conclusion hung in the air like a death sentence. The worst thing was, Dirk was smiling. It was a bitter, horrible smile that came with watery eyes and a overwhelming sense of being lost that Todd knew he had no hope of trying to understand.

Dirk was a leaf in the stream of creation, and the stream had drowned him for just trying to stay afloat.

Todd fumed with anger. Several things finally made sense. Dirk had obviously cared for Reg. If Dirk blamed himself for his death - or non-existence or whatever - that would explain why Dirk had entirely shut down on hearing that he was gone. To Dirk, it _was_ a punishment. Dirk had literally had the weight of the world on his shoulders, and had collapsed under the pressure. Only Dirk would believe that a single human being should have been able to do anything else.

Dirk sniffed and began wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. Dirk laughed at himself, and shook his head in despair. Todd couldn't let him feel like that any longer. There had to be something they could cling to, some glimmer of a distant hope. What had they missed? What was still missing? That question was easy to answer - Susan, Gordon, Michael and Reg Chronotis. But Richard was still here.

_And Richard was still Dirk's client._

'What if the case never ended?' Todd blurted suddenly.

Dirk looked up at him.

'What?' Dirk asked, his voice distant.

'What if the case never ended? What if you've just been on hiatus - what if you were supposed to do what you did, and now you're coming back to do the rest of it?'

Todd was becoming more and more enthused. This made _sense_. Dirk may have solved the case in theory, but he never put the solution into practice because it wasn't _actually_ the solution! It was just another step on a journey which would take them to the end.

Dirk looked stunned, his mouth slightly open. 'I -'

'It's like Ginger!' Farah exclaimed. It was! Todd grinned, nodding, as she continued: 'Ginger's owner had you on retainer - Ginger escaped again and you found her and you'll return her. Couldn't Richard just have had you on retainer, this whole time? You said he never paid you?'

Dirk swallowed. He was still for a second. Then, it was as if a light exploded in his face.

Dirk shot up, slamming his head into the roof of the taxi.

'Ow!' Dirk shouted, rubbing his head. Then he barked: 'Driver! Follow that car!'

'What car?' the driver shouted.

'It doesn't matter!' Dirk grinned, ecstatic. 'I'm on a case!'

*

The car they followed took them to a hotel. It wasn't the hotel that Farah had booked, but that was absolutely, entirely and completely _fine_ with Dirk who practically danced into the small lobby.

'Rooms!' Dirk cheerfully announced at the desk.

The receptionist looked bewildered.

Farah and Todd caught up with him just as Dirk snatched the keycards from the receptionist's hand.

'They had two rooms left! Isn't that perfect?' Dirk couldn't stop smiling. It was almost beginning to hurt his face.

'Uh... wouldn't three have been perfect?' Todd said, slightly taken aback.

'Nonsense, Todd! Waste not, want not! Besides, there's always room for a little one,' Dirk said, nudging Todd's elbow and leaping to the lifts.

 

*

'I created this app to _avoid_ thunderstorms, not head straight into them,' Richard complained as Amanda threw open the back doors to the van.

Vogel rolled out, eagerly. Gripps took his time, his eyes searching the area. Cross, as ever, exited eventfully, deciding instead to break through the van's windscreen than use a door.

'Cool!' Amanda grinned as the glass shattered around him.

Richard was almost white with shock. Amanda grabbed his arm and looped it through hers.

'What're we doin?' Martin growled, slamming the driver's side door shut.

He was carrying his new favourite weapon - a heavy table leg, which could act both as something to throw at people and something to bring down on people's heads. Amanda appreciated how resourceful Martin was in choosing his favourite weapons.

'Waiting for lightning to strike,' Amanda said, giddy with anticipation.

'Zap! Zap!' Vogel added.

'Don't look like fucking rain,' Gripps scowled, looking at the sky.

If Amanda was to be honest, she had to agree. The sky around them was cloudy, but the clouds were fluffy and white and distinctly un-storm-like. They had stopped outside a large apartment building which reminded Amanda a lot of the Ridgely. There were bikes chained to the railings outside and several overflowing trash cans beside the two doors which probably lead to the main lobby.

'My app isn't wrong,' Richard snapped. Gripps snarled, dog-like, at him, which made Richard flinch, but he didn't lose the determination in his eyes. 'I've spent thousands of pounds and endless hours researching the data on lightening strikes.'

'You really need to get out more,' Amanda mused.

'Yes, well. Just wait.'

They didn't have to wait long, which was good because Vogel had absolutely no attention span. He had just finished wrestling the trash cans when the sky finally began to darken.

'Shit,' Amanda said, looking upwards from her seat on top of the front of the van, her jacket on the broken glass.

The white fluffy clouds were gone, replaced with deep grey, ominous looking ones that seemed full to bursting with rain.

'I told you,' Richard said, who was standing beside her, also looking up. 'Conditions are right.'

'What? Like, air pressure and humidity and that?' Amanda asked, looking across at him.

Richard went a little pink. 'Lots of factors. Maybe... maybe factors that others wouldn't consider to be relevant. I don't pick my data sets based on particular pre-held beliefs, I just find those which correlate and use them. It's a more - more -'

'Holistic approach?' Amanda finished, sweetly.

Richard glared at her. 'I was going to say "mathematically unbiased" approach. I just choose whatever data predicts correctly. It's simple correlation.'

The sky above them crackled ominously. Cross laughed manically and Vogel started slamming the bins with his hands, as if he was trying to summon thunder.

'Look, shouldn't we get inside or something?' Richard asked, his voice wavering.

'Nah,' Martin dismissed, throwing his cigarette stub onto the curb. 'Lil electric shock never hurt no one.'

'Personal experience?' Richard asked, looking wary.

Martin bared his teeth at him.

The sky above them exploded. The darkness became shockingly ice white for a brief second and a snaking, straggling strike of lightening collided with the rod on the top of the building. Barely half a second later, and an intense boom of thunder rocketed over them. It made Amanda's ear drums rumble like the best drum solo.

'This is so cool!' Amanda shouted over the cheers of the Rowdy Three.

'Really?' Richard shouted back in absolute disbelief.

Another thunder strike hit the building. Then another, and another. It was as if the storm was trying to crack the bricks in half.

'Haven't we seen enough?' Richard shouted over yet another huge bang.

'Hell no!' Vogel screamed. 'More! More!'

'Yeah! Lightening eagle! Arhoo!' Cross screeched.

There were three more blistering strikes in rapid succession and then, on the fourth, there was a catastrophic explosion from the top of the building.

Amanda stepped back in amazement. Something large, metallic and grey had evidently had enough of being repeatedly pile-driven and decided to explode. Fragments of metal and plastic rained down over them and the apartments below, dousing everything in hot flame.

'Fire! Fire! Fire!' Cross screamed, manically happy.

'There are people in there - !' Richard shouted, his eyes wide and urgent.

'Boys!' Martin shouted, beating his hand with his table leg. He commanded the respect of every one of the Rowdy Three in an instant. 'Break-in time!'

'Rowdy Three!' Amanda, Cross, Gripps, Martin and Vogel shouted together and sprinted, weapons outstretched, towards the entrance.

 


	4. Bathtubs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Rowdy Three receive a message. Todd has an attack in London. Farah begins some actual investigating.

**Several Years Ago**  
_Cambridge_

Richard MacDuff, breathless and late, ran through the massive stone arch and into St. Cedd's giant, cathedral-like dining hall.

He skidded to a halt. He was not surprised, but not exactly unpleased, to find that the only seat left at either of the long tables was one next to Svlad Cjelli - or _Dirk_ Cjelli, as he now liked to be called. There were worse arseholes he could be forced to spend the evening with.

The hall had been dressed for the formal occasion of the annual Coleridge dinner. Large finely-woven banners swung pompously above in the rich hues of the college colours. Arrogant-looking tablecloths, unnecessarily gold threaded, were draped over the two tables, which had been piled high with glinting, conceited silver plates packed with rotund foods. Large, offensively ornate candelabras gave the entire scene a bristling orange glow.

MacDuff the Scot instantly found the display of wealth and English arrogance appalling, but Richard the Student was staring at the free meal with paralysing elation.

He quickly sat down at the seat, shuffled his chair in, noticing that no one was eating. All his fellow undergraduates were either fidgeting, quietly talking or profoundly asleep. There was a tight silence across the hall - a sense of something not quite happening, _yet_.

Richard looked around, accidentally meeting Dirk's eyes. Dirk, looking almost suicidally bored, was lightly smacking himself in the face with the back of his fork. Dirk stood out from the rest of the undergraduates - as he always did. Although everyone had stuffed themselves into the robes and penguin suits that the college demanded for formal dinners, Dirk's clothing was slightly scruffier than the average Cambridge student. Although it was the right colour, his shirt was tight across his chest and the fading black of his robes and mismatching thread implied a past few not-so-careful owners. Richard, a state-school boy with five older brothers and no stranger to hand-me-downs, instantly found this likeable.

At the High Table reserved for the college Fellows and Directors, the Director of English Studies finished drinking from a large glass of water with a large, expectant cough. At that moment, Richard realised why everyone had the wan pallor of the condemned; he had not finished the ceremonial reading of Kubla Khan, which meant the dinner could not yet begin.

'The shadow of the dome of pleasure  
Floated midway on the waves;  
Where was heard the mingled measure  
From the fountain and the caves.  
It was a miracle of rare device,  
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!'

'He's no' even got to the weird bit, yet,' Richard muttered despondently, somewhat at Dirk.

Richard knew about Dirk - he doubted there was anyone at the college who _didn't_ know him - but hadn't to this point said more than a brief 'hello' as they passed each other going into and out of Reg Chronotis' office, whom they shared as a personal tutor.

For a college filled with students bound to be either the future political elite, the top scientific minds of their generation or the overwhelmingly depressed cast of the BBC's arts department, Dirk had _still_ managed to give himself notoriety, although no one could say exactly what for. He wore stupid hats, could be often found stalking the grounds talking to trees, and never seemed to attend any lectures - but none of that was out of the ordinary for the more eccentric Cambridge student. Maybe it was the way he spoke - as if his brain had been hard-wired into a thesaurus - or the way he perpetually denied everything, especially things of which he was never accused.

'Coleridge wrote this work after taking a frankly heroic amount of laudanum,' Dirk whispered at Richard, stopping his fork-whacking for a moment. 'He can hardly be blamed for being a bit weird. Opiates give you _remarkably_ insane thoughts.'

'Personal experience?' Richard murmured, cheekily. It had meant to be a lighthearted joke, but Dirk responded by tightening his jaw. 'Oh. Um. I'm - I'm Richard, by the way.'

'A damsel with a dulcimer  
In a vision once I saw:  
It was an Abyssinian maid,  
And on her dulcimer she played,  
Singing of Mount Abora.'

'Dirk Cjelli.'

'I know.'

Dirk finally looked at him. His eyes flickered with intrigue.

'How?'

'Mate, you announced your name change by megaphone in the centre of the college grounds two weeks ago. An' then the hungover bumps team chased you down the banks of the Cam and threw you in for it. That's a little hard to forget.'

'Oh,' Dirk looked briefly disappointed. Then, he grinned beatifically. 'Ah-ha! So, now no-one will forget my name!'

An errant breeze picked up the smell of a particularly butter-ladened pastry and wafted it across Richard's nose. His stomach growled.

Richard snuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a packet of Cadbury's chocolate he had stuck in there earlier - predicting the torture of a delayed dinner.

With the kind of discreetness well practised by those used to snacking in comprehensive classrooms, he deftly opened the bag, one handed.

He offered it to Dirk, keeping it out of sight underneath the table. Dirk looked at it, curious.

'Could I revive within me  
Her symphony and song,  
To such a deep delight ‘twould win me,  
That with music loud and long,  
I would build that dome in air,  
That sunny dome! Those caves of ice!'

'Want some?' Richard shook the bag and the scraps of chocolate inside made a tempting rustling sound. 'I mean, if it won't spoil yer dinner - which to be honest is probably half gone to shite anyway.'

'What are they?'

'Chocolate buttons, mate. They don't have 'em in... where did you say you were from?'

'Transylvania,' Dirk said, with none of the self-consciousness that should have accompanied such a statement. 'But I wasn't there long. Are they sweet or sour or bitter or salty or umami? Or are they a combination of two or more of the five?'

'It's just chocolate.'

Dirk's face remained exactly the same - just as confused and curious, and a little wary. Richard realised - with more than a little surprise - that Dirk didn't know what chocolate was. That was so bizarre that Richard thought it was perfectly apt for Dirk.

'Just try 'em - trust me.'

Dirk still looked wary, but he dug his hand into the bag all the same. He pulled out a single button. With trepidation he lifted it to his face and sucked it into his mouth.

Richard had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at the pleasure which washed over Dirk's face. The tenseness over his forehead had disappeared and his eyes had fluttered shut. Richard had one comparison to make, and it was definitely not appropriate to dinner.

'Oh, God,' Dirk groaned, gripping the table with his fingertips.

Richard felt the tips of his ears go red. He coughed, loudly. Luckily, the people opposite and to the other side of them seemed half-asleep and hadn't noticed Dirk's predicament.

'Can I have more?' Dirk asked, eagerly. He was smacking mouth like a post-sugar-lump horse. 'They are absolutely the most amazing and brilliant things I have ever tasted! I am evidently a massive, massive fan of chocolate,' Dirk paused and tilted his head in memory. 'That taste, it's - it's... familiar somehow...' Dirk then lost the distant look that glazed over his face and continued: 'I simply must have some more -'

'Not if you're gonna act like that you can't!' Richard hissed.

'Please? Please?' Dirk begged, desperately. 'I'll do anything!'

Richard realised that things were not likely to get any better and, in order to keep some decorum, pushed the entire bag into Dirk's hands.

Dirk shook with delight, made a mad high-pitched squealing sound and instantly delved his hand in.

'Aye, just remember I gave that to you for free when the exams come up,' Richard grinned.

Dirk froze, hand midway to his mouth.

'And all who heard should see them there,  
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!  
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!'

'Who have you been speaking to?' Dirk asked, unconvincingly casual.

'Your roommate - Steve. He's been going on about how if he buys you food and booze you give him the answers to exams - murmph!'

Richard half-choked as Dirk clapped his hand - the one incidentally full of chocolate buttons - over Richard's mouth.

'Shh!' Dirk hissed. Richard uncomfortably sucked some of the chocolate into his mouth to keep from dying. 'I'm not psychic!' Dirk announced, using his other hand to point directly Richard's face. 'Nor am I clairvoyant, psychosassic or parapsychologically interesting!'

Richard ripped Dirk's hand off his face and coughed, violently. He brought his sleeve up and wiped melted chocolate off his mouth.

'I never said you were, you mad git!' Richard remembered to lower his voice at the last second. The two girls opposite them were giggling to each other. He felt his face flush red. 'Jesus wept, Cjelli.'

'Whether he did or did not that is hardly the matter at hand!' Dirk continued angrily, far too loud. 'Just because I apparently happen to be able to derive probable future exam questions through sleep talking does not imply anything about possible -!'

'Dirk, shut up!' Richard hissed, grabbing his shoulder.

Dirk instantly smacked Richard away with a flat hand that belonged in a bad karate movie and a strangled 'HEE YA!' that didn't belong anywhere.

In his enthusiasm, Dirk accidentally unbalanced himself. His chair began to teeter backwards. Dirk yelped and grabbed at the only thing he could, which just so happened to be the tablecloth in front of him.

With an almighty crash of cutlery, tableware and quite a few expensive looking candelabras, Dirk brought the dinner to quite a memorable end.

*

An hour later, Dirk was pinching his broken nose to stem the bleeding and Richard was looking over the roasted holes in his once reasonable-ish gown.

They had been dumped in Professor Chronotis' office until the ambulance arrived. It was one of the only places of the college which was distant enough from the fire to not be at risk.

'You dnow,' Dirk began, from underneath a thick wad of tissue paper and above the sound of caterwauling fire engines. 'I'm still trying to decide whedder you're a clue, an accompblice or an assistant.'

'...What?'

'I think you're an assistant...' Dirk said, suspiciously, looking at Richard with a critical, narrow gaze. He then smiled - hungry and interested - which gave his bloody face the vampiric tint that was probably well-bred into his lineage. 'Yep. Defibnetly an assistant.'

*

**Present Day**

Todd was flicking through his phone, his eyes glazing in the strong, unnatural light, trying not to think about the fact that he was sharing a bed with Dirk.

The hotel room was compact, simple and plastic, a kind of motel-slash-prison where just sleeping through the night was the goal rather than wasting any time feeling comfortable. There was a bathroom with a shower, two bedside tables and a bed which was barely large enough to be advertised as a double, and everything without exception was lurid purple.

Todd's phone rumbled in his hand. Low battery. Todd sighed and locked it, putting it on the bedside table nearest him.

He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling for a bit. Purple, of course. Bored, he looked across to Dirk.

Dirk was slathered on the bed like butter on toast. Face down, his arms and legs had been thrown out in wild directions, bringing all the covers along for the ride. Despite the fact that his face was mashed into the pillow, he was still somehow able to breathe.

It was how Dirk always slept: looking every bit a thorough disaster of a man. It never failed to make Todd grin. He had watched Dirk sleep countless times now. Shared motel rooms; the back of pickup trucks; floors of cells, abandoned storage units and - once - the cramped storage room of a haunted aquarium... But this was the first time that they had ever slept in the same bed.

It brought extra dimensions to the experience. Todd could smell the peppery aftershave that often tingled in his nose whenever Dirk would get insensibly close to him. Todd had never seen Dirk put aftershave on, yet he always smelled of it. It had become the smell of excitement and adventure, yet comfort and reassurance at the same time, like a familiar meal at an exotic restaurant.

Todd had to ask him where Dirk bought it. Maybe he could buy him some for his birthday. Wait - when was his birthday? How the hell could he not know Dirk's birthday?

Dirk snuffled in his sleep, then made a startlingly weird yelping noise that reminded Todd of a cat having its tail slammed in a door. Then, Dirk pulled his head up and - still apparently asleep - rolled himself onto his back. His head lolled to one side, towards Todd, his eyelashes flickering.

Todd was intrigued: Dirk never slept on his back; he was always face-down.

Dirk heavily breathed out, expelling a noise between a soft moan and a whine. It made Todd's breath hitch.

Todd's eyes followed from the hollow of Dirk's throat down to the collar of his white undershirt. The covers had wrapped around Dirk's stomach, just above his waist, revealing the long muscles in his arms and the strong, sturdy expanse of his chest. His hands were open, relaxed, one splayed across his stomach and the other on the pillow.

Todd sighed. God, he was beautiful.

Wait.

Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh _hell_ no.

Did he... like Dirk?

Several parts of himself began a screaming debate with the other parts, trying to answer the question with all the dignity and restraint of a bag of wet and angry cats, all while trying to remain frozen still and not wake Dirk.

After a full minute of self-actualisation, Todd came to two solid conclusions.

Firstly, yes. Undoubtedly, undisputedly, yes. He liked Dirk. He had probably liked Dirk from the moment the saccharine, doe-eyed bastard had taken his shirt at the hospital with that disbelieving "for me?" look which belonged in commercials of kids ripping open presents on Christmas Day.

Secondly - now that Todd was aware - he had to stuff all it, every little scrap of it, so, so, so deep down inside himself that no one could ever work it out because he - Todd Brotzman - was an asshole, despite Dirk's protests to the contrary, and Todd could not let his asshole ways ruin the best thing to ever happen in his life.

' _Wave a circle round him thrice..._ '

Todd jolted and snapped open his eyes, unsure of when he had closed them. Dirk was still sound asleep, but his lips were twitching and his brow was furrowed.

' _And close your eyes with holy dread..._ ' Dirk murmured.

Sleep talking. Todd let out a shaky, breathless laugh. This was normal. Well, not normal - Todd had never heard Dirk sleep talk before - but it was certainly more goddamn normal than anything else at that moment.

Todd reached for his phone. It still had enough battery in it for a quick recording. Maybe Dirk would say something embarrassing, and he and Amanda could tease him about later. Like they were friends and nothing more - which they were, of course. And nothing else.

' _For he on honey-dew hath fed... and drunk the milk of Paradise..._ '

Todd listened, strangely enraptured, as Dirk continued to talk.

*

Amanda and the rest of the Three stormed into the apartment with a triumphant caterwaul, leaping over the door that Gripps had smashed down just moments earlier.

The room was enveloped by thick, acrid smoke. Amanda's eyes stung. It was impossible to see more than a foot in front of her face.

'DROWN IT! DROWN IT WITH FISTS!'

'ROWDY THREE!'

'YEAH! AIN'T NO FIRE'S BITCH.'

The boys fanned out in four directions, trying to intimidate the fire with their war cry. They didn't need sight; they were acting on the sixth, seventh and eighth senses that made them formidable trackers. Amanda - who didn't have any of that - couldn't follow, but she wasn't going to back down. She wasn't afraid of fire. She had been burned alive too many times to count.

'IS ANYONE IN HERE?' she shouted, hands cupping her mouth.

A strangled cry of 'Help!' fought its way through the riot. It sounded terrified and young.

She heard Martin's piercing whistle and the crash of three re-directed Rowdies, heading to the source of the noise. Amanda felt a rush of overwhelming pride and love for her boys.

Above her, the ceiling groaned. Amanda watched, eyes wide. as it dropped a few inches.

She backed away, towards the exit, looking ahead into the darkness for a sign of life. She wasn't going to leave her boys, but she was no good to them dead.

As she moved, Amanda brought her boot down onto something that brought her slightly off balance. Through the curling smoke, she could see it was a thick power cable. It stretched across the floor and into the back of a large old-style CRT television.

There was a huge boom - another lightning strike - and suddenly the room exploded with noise and light.

A stereo begun to blast a bass-deep anthem. Several reels of strewn fairy lights fizzled awake. Whizzing, whirring, talking, buzzing - every electrical device in the apartment screaming into electrified life.

Amanda dropped to the ground and clasped her hands over her ears. The power cable - inches from her nose - was glowing yellow-orange and was whipping like a frenzied snake.

Amanda stared at the CRT television, which had started to glow. With a crackle of static, the grey-white fuzz resolved into an image: a large diamond with a circle in the middle, stricken across, point-to-point, by a dividing line. It pulsed, angrily orange.

'God,' Amanda breathed, her words entirely unheard underneath the howling of her boys, the torrential rain outside and the crackling of electrified noise. She recognised the symbol immediately. 'ICARUS.'

The complex rocked under another lightening strike.

The television jumped into the air and the image fuzzed back into static but quickly resolved again into a new image - a flickering cross, the top line an oval.

Another strike. Another image. An old-timey shepherd's crook.

Strike. Image. The symbol of a bird, side on. It was long necked and flat footed - looked like a goose.  
  
Another lightening strike and it went back to ICARUS - silent, orange - and the pattern repeated.

It was a message. _A message for Dirk_.

Lightening. Cross. Lightening. Crook. Lightening. Bird. Lightening.

Amanda burned each of them into her memory with all the concentration she could summon. She could barely breathe. Her head was fuzzy. She couldn't feel anything but smoke.

Was she having an attack? She couldn't see. She couldn't think. What was happening?

_ICARUS, Cross, Crook, Bird. ICARUS, Cross, Crook, Bird..._

Amanda screamed, the images flickering over her eyes as someone lifted her up, dragging her away from the message, from what someone was trying to tell them - what someone had shot lightening from the fucking sky to let them know.

_ICARUS, Cross, Crook, Bird, ICARUS, Cross, Crook, Bird -_

*

Amanda came to in the back of the Rowdy Three's van, coughing up lungfuls of soot. She was being thrown side to side as they caught sky over speed bumps.

Her boys were laughing, crowing, joyfully celebrating the destruction. Amanda laughed out loud and the boys howled in happiness to find her back with them.

Everyone was happy. Well, apart from Richard. Richard was looking panicked and scared and not suited to this at all, kneeling beside her.

Amanda grabbed him by the neck of his shirt and dragged him down to her level.

'Paper!' she roared. His eyes widened. 'Paper! Now!'

*

Chasing eagerly after the van were a pack of slightly-singed dogs.

*

Dirk, having liberated as much as he could from the breakfast bar, was carrying armfuls of bread rolls, toast, bananas, apples, oranges, jam packets, butter sachets and two different types of peanut butter towards their hotel room. The rest of his haul - several little plastic pots of milk and a solitary pear - were stuffed in the pockets of his jacket.

On reaching the door, Dirk realised he had no hope of getting the keycard.

He peered optimistically at the hallway's purple carpet. He briefly considered putting something down to free a hand, but it looked of dubious cleanliness and Dirk thought Todd and he both deserved a breakfast free of carpet fluff.

'Todd!' Dirk called through the door. He waited for a second. 'Todd!'

He experimented a little with different ways to say his best friend's name. He could be very quick ('Todd!') or drag it out petulantly (' _Toooooooodd!_ '). He could give it a hard T, or a hard D.

Whilst he was experimenting with a hard O (which involved some quite invigorating use of his lower register), Todd pulled the door open. He was in his sleep things - white boxer shorts and a snug navy-blue t-shirt with a logo of a band Dirk didn't recognise - and barely awake.

'Hi!' Dirk grinned. He offered his arms upwards. 'Breakfast!'

Todd's eyes widened a bit in surprise, but not alarm. To Dirk, there was quite a bit of difference.

'Er, yeah. Sure.'

Dirk snuck in past him and began unburdening himself of the haul on the small table. He heard Todd click the door shut behind him.

'I wanted to get eggs - I know how much you like eggs - but they turn out to not be exactly conductive to travel, especially when sunny-side up -'

'Weren't we supposed to go down for breakfast?' Todd asked through a large yawn. Todd stretched his arms above his head, lacing his fingers together. 'What time is it?'

Dirk put some dry toast in his mouth, to distract himself from watching Todd stretch.

'Honestly, Todd.' Dirk covered his mouth to not spray his best friend with crumbs. 'It's far too -' _Crunch._ '- early for that kind of philosophical talk, isn't it?'

'Did Farah go down with you?'

'Oh, no. She had something to do. She's gone to get guns.'

'She's gone to... get guns?'

'Yes!' Dirk stuck a finger into one of the peanut butter jars. 'It's quite useful actually; Patrick Spring often conducted international business ventures and a lot of them were in Europe. Farah apparently has -' Dirk sucked his finger clean, '- quite a few drop boxes in quite a few countries. Extremely useful for a bodyguard and exceedingly helpful as the defacto security for my agency -'

'Farah's gone to get guns? On her own?' Todd asked, alarmed. 'Why the hell didn't we go with her?'

'You were sleeping,' Dirk explained, matter-of-fact, licking the insides of his cheeks free of the sticky peanut butter.

'Why didn't you go?'

'You were sleeping!' Dirk repeated, a little louder in case Todd hadn't heard through the peanut butter. He put the jar down onto the table. It obviously wasn't conductive to conversation.

'You could have gone - left me a note or something!' Todd protested.

'I didn't want to leave you alone.'

Anger flashed across Todd's face. 'Dirk. Stop doing this.'

'Doing what?'

'You know exactly what you're doing!'

'I never know what I'm doing!' Dirk said, frantically. 'Let alone "exactly" knowing it!'

Todd's mouth opened but he said nothing.

He coughed, then shook his head as if trying to dislodge a confusing thought.

His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he collapsed forward.

'Shit!' Dirk yelped.

He rushed forward, too late to catch him. Dirk pulled Todd up onto his knees.

'No, no, no, no,' Todd was hissing, his eyes screwed shut. Breathing was shallow. Trembling, clutching his hands to his chest.

'It's okay, it's okay -' Dirk lied, soothingly.

' _No, no, no -_ '

Todd waved his hands over his face, trying to fight something invisible, then he let out a terrified, tortured scream that made Dirk's skin crawl.

He drove his teeth into his lower lip and began to convulse. Shivering. Trapped in a fit. Trapped in whatever hell his pararibulitis had dreamt up for him.

Dirk grabbed Todd's hands - keeping them from clawing over his face.

'What's happening?' Dirk swallowed. 'Tell me what's wrong - what do I have to do?'

Todd's hands clenched hard as he gasped in pain, driving his nails into Dirk's palm. Dirk bit back the impulse to scream.

Was Todd going to die? How could he help? Farah was half-way across the city, Amanda and the Rowdy Three were across the ocean. There was no help to get; no one to save him.

Dirk lifted Todd's head and stroked his hand against his forehead in a manner he hoped would soothe. It didn't work. Todd was still shivering all over, now mumbling something indiscriminate, twitching and biting back cries of unimaginable pain.

Dirk brought himself closer.

 _'-cold cold cold cold-_ '

In that instant, Dirk was reminded of a past case which had revealed to him the spectacular healing power of baths - especially ones with crushed sedra leaves, apricot kernel and almond oil, bitter orange blossom infusion, sage and comfrey. Dirk doubted the Islington Premier Inn would stock the required herbs in their mid-range rooms, but hoped that maybe there was some flowery shampoo with which he could improvise.

Dirk grabbed Todd around the shoulders and pulled him to his feet. Todd staggered forward, falling into Dirk's chest. Dirk held him firm.

'Come on, Todd. It's alright.'

Half-dragging, half-stumbling, Dirk forced them across the room and into the bathroom.

The bathroom was cramped, with just enough room for a sink, toilet and a bath with a large, silver shower attachment. There were no bottles of any description, so that part of the plan had to go hang.

Dirk pushed Todd into the bath, pushing him up against the end without the taps. Todd's breathing was incredibly tight now, coming out in a hiss. He was twitching and shivering, his fingers flinching with uncontrollable spasms.

Dirk grabbed the taps and twisted them, as hot as he dared. He pulled the lever which switched the flow to the shower. Water exploded out of the shower head, drenching Todd beneath it.

Todd didn't react at all, still caught in incomprehensible torture.

Dirk - now slightly worried he would save his best friend from freezing to death just to drown him instead - kicked off his shoes. He scrambled into the bathtub, behind Todd, and pulled him into his lap. Dirk held Todd upright, trying to keep as much of Todd's body as he could under the heated spray whilst keeping his face clear.

Dirk gasped. The water was steaming, not burning, but it was beating down on them both like a rainstorm. Dirk had been in rainstorms - he had been in hurricanes and fires and tsunamis and earthquakes - and none of them scared him as much as this did.

He pulled Todd closer, wrapping his arms around his back, putting his head on Todd's shoulder. Todd's twitching was still relentless, but he was gasping less and the shakes did seem more controllable. It was working. Thank God, it was working.

Dirk wiped his sodden fringe from his eyes and clasped him tighter. He wasn't going to let Todd go. Not for _anything_.

*

Farah slipped her fingers in the inner lining of her leather jacket, checking for the cold weight of the Beretta 92 FS as she made her way down the street. It gave her more than a little relief to clasp her hand around it.

The street she was walking down didn't exactly scream dangerous, but Farah never let her guard down. It was a long, tree-lined high street, populated with artisan cafes and independent bistros.

A skinny, woman with high-waisted pants and large, loopy earrings - her arm linked around her muscular boyfriend - gave Farah absolutely no attention as they passed by. Farah took that as a good sign: she was successfully blending in.

Farah turned into a Starbucks (some things were the same everywhere). It was smallish, with a large blackboard above the counter where the baristas had signed their names in loopy chalk.

She ordered a coffee and a croissant, grabbed a free paper, collected her coffee, then took a seat on one of the high stools which looked out at the large front window.

She opened the free paper and skated her eyes over an article, unreading. With deft, almost artful, knowledge of her craft she looked up and through the window.

There were three shops directly opposite: a hairdressers, a small boutique and - most importantly - an independent music store called _Chordette_ , which had existed since the mid-eighties and specialised in the cello.

Her phone vibrated against her thigh. Farah pulled it out. There was a message from Amanda.

**hey u no how u said dont die???**

**well i didn't die!!!**

Farah reminded herself of meditation and inhabited an island of calm.

**What the hell do you mean??**

Or, tried to.

**What happened??**

**Are you okay??**

**Amanda reply NOW**

Not tremendously successfully.

**lol thought that would get ur attention**

**im fine i said i DIDN'T die.**

**[http://komonews.com/news/local/fire-destroys-apartment-complex-none-injured]**

**You started a fire?**

**lightening started a fire. r3 saved everyone.**

**vogel says hi**

**Hi Vogel**

**Is this the lightning you were chasing?**

**yeah + it had a message for us!!!**

**[img453.jpg]**

Farah opened the image file. It was a photograph of a single piece of paper, with four pictures scrawled in each corner.

The first was instantly recognisable and made Farah's heart sink - the Project ICARUS symbol: the official emblem for the division who had worked exclusively with Dirk. Potentially, it meant that the CIA could be involved. Farah winced; she had already experienced enough of their bullshit for a lifetime. 

The other three symbols Farah recognised only from junior school history, but a quick google confirmed her suspicions. The first was an ankh, the ancient Egyptian design for life. The second was a crook, used in hieroglyphics to represent leadership or beneficence. The third was definitely some form of Egyptian bird, although Farah was unable to name it and therefore couldn't check its meaning.

**Apart from the I symbol, these are all Egyptian hieroglyphs**

**cool!!!!**

**hey if ur going 2 egypt i want another hat**

**pyramid one**

Out of the corner of her eye, Farah noticed movement near  _Chordette_. A large, white-haired man in a black raincoat was pulling out a large set of keys from his pocket.

*

Todd felt wet. Wet and feverish. Wet and feverish and exhausted.

It was a familiar exhaustion - a post-attack exhaustion, deep inside, like something had been gnawing on his bones - and a familiar post-attack fever. But the wetness was new.

Todd moved his head. He was resting on something warm and damp. It was material. Wet material, cloth-like. But there was a heat behind it. Soft breathing.

Todd struggled his eyes open. He was in a bath. It was the bathroom of the hotel they were staying in. In England. Had he collapsed in the tub? It wasn't likely; Todd had purposefully avoided anything but sink-showers since developing pararibulitis. Water was a real trigger, and if he passed out in a shower could be pretty dangerous.

He must have been put here. There was safety in that thought. There was safety in the heat behind him. Todd nuzzled his head against the wet cloth and the heat behind it, and heard a man's voice let out a small, tired groan.

A familiar voice.

Dirk's voice.

He was lying on Dirk.

 _Shit_.

'Are you awake?' Dirk whispered. 

Todd felt Dirk's fingers skate through his wet hair. Todd's chest felt pulled in two directions. One with the absolute, crushing fear of being in such proximity to someone that he had just that night resolved to _never_ get involved with, and other the overwhelming relief and happiness that Dirk had helped him through something which still scared the absolute shit out of Todd, no matter what brave face he put on with Amanda.

'Yeah,' Todd croaked. His throat hurt. He must have been screaming.

'Sorry this - this can't be too comfortable. I was going to get a pillow, but then I realised I would get the pillow wet and I'm not sure whether the hotel would appreciate that, although I guess it would be half of the washing done for them - and also you were sleeping and I didn't want to wake you.'

Dirk's chest rumbled when he spoke. Todd liked it. Todd could easily fall back to sleep, listening to Dirk's voice and lying on his warm chest. Dirk was also playing with his hair now. Todd wasn't sure he realised.

'Dirk - 'm so tired.'

'Oh god, sorry. I should - I should just shut up. Yes, you must be exhausted - you've been - well - well, it happened, didn't it? And it was okay, yes? I mean - not okay, Christ, that was definitely one-hundred-percent _not okay_ but everything after the not okay was okay - right? Todd?'

Todd nodded, his eyelids drooping.

'Thank you,' he slurred, and slipped into unconsciousness.


End file.
